L- 


\, 


^ 


fcibrarjD  of  trhe  'theological  ^vmoxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
REVEREND  JESSE  HALSEY,  D.D. 

BX  7233  .H85  D4 
Hunter,  John,  1849-1917 
De  profundis  clamavi 


DE    PROFUNDIS    CLAMAVI 

<iAnd  Other  Sermons 


DE    PROFUNDIS 
CLAMAVI 


^nd  Other  SermonsK/^ 


BY 


JOHN    HUNTER,   D.D.   (Glas.) 


TRINITY  CHURCH,    GLASGOW 


NEW  YORK:    THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

LONDON :   WILLIAMS  &  NORGATE 

1908 


TO   THE    MEMORY    OF 

MY    FATHER    AND   MOTHER 

I    DEDICATE 
THIS   VOLUME   OF   SERMONS 


PREFACE 

The  following  sermons,  except  for  verbal  corrections 
and  the  restoration  of  paragraphs  omitted  in  delivery, 
are  printed  just  as  they  were  preached.  I  entirely 
agree  with  those  who  urge  that  the  wide  difference 
between  the  literary  and  the  oral  style  makes  sermons, 
generally  speaking,  unsuitable  for  publication.  When 
preached  they  have  usually  done  their  work.  I  do  not 
think  that  the  sermons  in  this  volume  are  any  exception 
to  the  rule.  I  publish  them  because  1  have  been  often 
urged  to  do  so  by  those  who  heard  them.  They  make 
no  pretension,  at  least,  to  finished  literary  form.  The 
personal  appeals  which  distinguish  the  sermon  from  the 
essay  or  lecture  I  have  left  untouched. 

The  sermons  contained  in  this  volume  do  not  form 
an  entirely  consecutive  course,  but  were  both  written 
and  preached  at  different  times  ;  hence  the  repetition 
here  and  there  of  thought  and  phrase.  They  are  held 
together,  however,  by  the  conviction  that  "  God  was 
in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  The 
liberty  I  have  sought  for  myself  and  others  during  a 
long  ministry  has  been  liberty  for  progress  in  Christ. 


viii  PREFACE 

We  are  not  straitened  in  Him.  In  His  name  we 
are  committed  to  an  undeparting  inspiration  and  a 
progressive  revelation. 

This  little  volume  is  also  meant  to  be  of  the  nature 
of  a  testimony.  I  have  always  maintained  that  keeping 
the  mind  open  and  free,  loyal  to  the  broadest  find- 
ings of  modern  Christian  thought,  does  not  necessarily 
involve  the  loss  in  one's  self  of  a  deep  and  tender 
piety,  nor  in  one's  preaching  of  the  evangelical  spirit 
and  the  power  of  direct,  earnest,  and  practical  appeal. 
With  the  theological  liberalism  which  finds  little  space 
for  the  culture  of  the  devout  life,  and  with  the 
dogmatism  of  inverted  orthodoxy,  which  has  lost  "  the 
passion  for  souls,"  I  have  no  sympathy. 

One  or  two  discourses  on  Inspiration  and  related 
subjects,  which  have  been  crowded  out  of  this  volume, 
will  appear  in  a  second  series  which  I  contemplate 
publishing  next  year. 

I  desire  to  make  acknowledgment  to  the  editor  of 
The  Christian  World  for  permission  to  make  use  of  an 
article  on  the  Atonement  contributed  by  me  to  that 
journal  a  few  years  ago. 

I  am  also  indebted  to  an  old  friend,  Mr  William 
Whitwell  of  Dorridge,  for  revising  proof-sheets. 

JOHN    HUNTER. 

Trinity  Church,  Glasgow, 
May  25,  1908. 


CONTENTS 


|v^  PAOB 

I.  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI         ....  i 

"  Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  Thee,  O  Lord^—VsKl-U 

CXXX.    I. 

Preached  at  Arlington  Street  Church,  Boston,  U.S.A., 
Tuesday  evening,  September  24,  1907,  in  connection  with  ihe 
meetings  of  the  Fourth  International  Congress  of  Liberal 
Religious  Thinkers. 


2.  WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED? 

^^  Sirs,  what  must  J  do  to  be  saved?  And  they  said, 
Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  and 
thy  house." — AcTS  xvi.  30. 

Preached  in  the  Town  Hall,  Hove,  Brighton,  on  Wednesday 
evening,  March  11,  1903,  in  connection  with  the  Annual 
Meetings  of  the  National  Council  of  the  Evangelical  Free 
Churches  of  England, 


3.  THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS  ...         74 

"Jesus  Christ  and  Hirn  crucified." — I  CoR.  ii.  2. 

Preached  in  the  Town  Hall,  Oxford,  on  Thursday,  April  19, 
1906,  under  the  auspices  of  the  National  Conference  of  Free 
Christian  Churches. 


IQT    ^ 


<  CONTENTS 

4.  THE  ATONEMENT 

'*  That  they  all  may  be  otte ;  as  Thon^  Father,  art  in  Me,  and  I 
in  Thee,  that  they  also  ?nay  be  one  in  Us.  The  glory  which  Thou 
gavest  Me  I  have  given  them." — ^JOHN  xvii.  21,  22. 

Preached  in  Trinity  Church,  Glasgow. 


5.  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  (i) 122 

"  To  glorify  with   one  accord  and  one  mouth  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. ^^ — RoM.  xv.  6. 

Preached  in  the  Bechstein  Hall,  London,  Trinity  Sunday, 
1906. 

6.  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  (2):  INTO  THY  HANDS       148 

"  And  when  Jesus  had  c7-ied  with   a   loud  voice,   He   said. 
Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit." — LuKExxiii.  46. 

Preached  in  WycHffe  Church,  Hull,  Monday  evening,  October 
I,  1906. 


171  V^ 


7.  THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO  . 

"  For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels, 
nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to 
come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  ci-eature,  shall  be 
able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord" — RoM.  viii.  38,  39. 

Preached  in  the  South  Cliff  Congregational  Church,  Scar- 
borough, Sunday  morning,  July  28,  1907. 


8.  GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE  ....        196 

' '  Fire  shall  be  kept  burning  on  the  altar  continually  ;  it  shall 
not  go  out." — Lev.  vi.  13. 

Preached  in  the  First  Church,  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  U.S.A., 
Tuesday  evening,  October  i,  1907. 


CONTENTS  xi 


PAGE 


9.  THE  DAY'S  WORK 227 

' '  Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labour  until  the 
evening." — PsALM  civ,  23. 

Preached  in  the  Parish  Church  of  Methlick,  Aberdeenshire, 
Sunday  morning,  January  28,  1906. 


10.  ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD?  .         .         .256 

' '  Beware  lest  thou  forget  the  Lord  thy  God,  in  not  keeping  His 
commandments  which  I  command  thee  this  day." — Deut.  viii.  ii. 

Preached  in  the  Cathedral,  Glasgow,  Sunday  evening,  August 
25,  1907,  and  in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  U.S.A.,  Sunday 
morning,  September  22,  1907. 


II.  FAITH  IN  GOD 282 

"  fesus  said,  Have  faith  in  God.  If  ye  have  faith,  ye  will 
say  unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou  taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea, 
and  it  shall  be  done." — Mark  xi.  23. 

Preached  in  Union  Chapel,  Manchester,  Sunday  morning, 
April  26,  1908. 


12.  THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE   .    .   310 

"  The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  ever- 
lasting arms." — Deut.  xxxiii.  27. 

Preached    in    the    King's   Weigh- House   Church,    London, 
Sunday  morning,  January  3,  1904. 


^ 


p/U>^^  ^ 


DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 


"  Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  Thee,  O  Lord.  Lord,  hear 
my  voice.  O  Israel,  hope  in  the  Lord  ;  for  with  the  Lord  there  is 
mercy,  and  with  Him  plenteous  redemption." — Psalm  cxxx.  i,  2,  7, 


I.  The  Depths  of  Life 

The  ancient  maxim,  "  Self-knowledge  is  the  beginning 
of  all  knowledge,"  has  a  nobler  significance  than  that 
which  it  often  bears.  It  is  true,  in  the  sense  of  St. 
Augustine's  memorable  words,  "  If  thou  sinkest  deep 
enough  into  the  human,  thou  wilt  find  the  Divine." 
Not  only  around  us,  but  within  us,  there  is  all  the 
mystery  and  wonder  of  the  universe.  Mind  and  heart 
and  soul  are  deeper  than  we  know.  They  draw  their 
life  from  infinite  sources. 

Thomas  Carlyle,  whose  "  gospel "  has  been  the 
inspiration  of  much  of  the  best  thinking  and  best 
striving  of  two  generations,  made  a  com.monplace  of 
the  fact  that  every  great  man  is  a  miracle.  But  one 
need  not  be  "  great "  in  order  to  be  a  miracle.     There 

I  I 


2  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

is  a  Divine  marvel  in  every  common  man.  Our  heroes 
and  saints  are  not  exceptional,  but  representative  men. 
They  reveal  and  interpret  us  to  ourselves,  disclose 
the  depths  of  our  being,  the  desires  of  our  nature,  and 
the  possibilities  of  our  life  ;  their  greatness  is  a  promise 
and  a  prophecy — the  justification,  not  the  condemnation, 
of  our  aspirations  and  hopes. 

Our  human  nature  and  human  life  have  their  depths, 
and  not  in  anything  are  they  less  understood  than  in  the 
depths  which  belong  to  them.  Their  superficial  aspects 
are  for  ever  hiding  from  us  their  deeper  realities. 
What  calls  itself  knowledge  of  men — acquaintance  with 
their  ordinary  thoughts,  passions,  motives,  and  ways, 
with  their  various  humours,  caprices,  follies,  and  weak- 
nesses— is  not  knowledge  of  man,  of  the  inner  and  real 
man  which  the  outer  man  as  often  conceals  as  reveals. 

We  speak  at  times  of  "  a  shallow  man."  But  is 
there  any  such  man  anywhere  ?  There  are  only  too 
many  men  everywhere  who  are  living  on  the  surface  of 
their  nature,  keenly  alive  to  their  earth-born  wants  and 
to  the  capacities  of  human  existence  for  work  and 
pleasure,  and  whose  days  are  largely  the  record  of  mean 
ambitions  and  strivings.  But  to  judge  by  appearances 
is  nearly  always  misleading.  The  acutest  judges  of 
character  are  often  at  fault,  and  none  go  more  frequently 
and  lamentably  astray  in  their  reckoning  than  those  who 
boast  most  confidently  of  their  knowledge  of  men.  In 
the  so-called  shallow  man  we  may  perceive,  if  we  look 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  3 

intently  and  sympathetically  enough,  what  is  not  shallow, 
and  find,  especially  in  those  revealing  hours  when  the 
tragic  forces  of  existence  sweep  into  his  life,  some  sug- 
gestion of  the  latent  power  which  needs  the  fiery  storm 
to  throw  it  up  to  the  surface.  We  are  often  only  pass- 
ing judgment  upon  ourselves,  upon  our  want  of  thought, 
imagination,  and  insight,  when  we  proclaim  our  fellows 
to  be  lacking  in  those  elements  to  which  the  great  and 
deep  things  of  life  make  their  appeal.  In  the  circle 
in  which  we  live  and  move  there  would  be  many  rich 
discoveries  for  anyone  with  fine  imaginative  power, 
skilled  to  see  into 

"  The  depths  of  human  souls — 
Souls  that  appear  to  have  no  depth  at  all 
To  careless  eyes." 

There  is  a  well-known  poem  by  Matthew  Arnold 
entitled  "The  Buried  Life" — a  poem  full  of  haunting 
music  and  rare  introspective  power.  It  is  a  picture 
of  many  a  soul,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  fill  in  from 
experience  the  outline  which  it  supplies.  We  all  have 
the  power  of  living  so  completely  upon  the  surface  of 
our  souls  as  to  be  ignorant  of  what  is  hidden  in  their 
depths.  It  is,  indeed,  a  large  part  of  the  pathos  and 
tragedy  of  life  that  we  are  so  disobedient  to  the  oracle 
which  bids  us  know  ourselves.  We  either  do  not  care 
for  self-knowledge,  or  imagine  we  have  it  in  such  abund- 
ance that  we  can  swear  by  it  at  times — "  as  well  as  ] 


4  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

know  myself  !  "  But  there  are  moments  when  we  have 
glimpses  of  what  we  are  and  may  be,  of  hitherto  unknown 
capacities  and  powers,  and  from  beneath  our  conscious 
life  there  rise  the  murmuring  voices  of  a  deeper — a 
buried  life. 

"  Yet  still  from  time  to  time,  vague  and  forlorn, 
From  the  soul's  subterranean  depth  upborne 
As  from  an  infinitely  distant  land. 
Come  airs,  and  floating  echoes,  and  convey 
A  melancholy  into  all  our  day  : 

A  bolt  is  shot  back  somew^here  in  our  breast, 

And  a  lost  pulse  of  feeling  stirs  again, 

The  eye  sinks  inward,  and  the  heart  lies  plain." 

It  is,  nevertheless,  true  that  many  people  here  and 
everywhere  are  living  superficial  and  shallow  lives. 
They  have  either  not  come  to  themselves,  they  are  still 
crude  undeveloped  beings,  to  the  great  human  powers 
and  affections  their  vital  progress  has  not  yet  advanced  ; 
or  they  have  fallen  away  from  their  true  life  after  it  had 
been  once  and  well  awake,  and  it  is  now  deeply  buried 
beneath  passion  and  pride,  concealed  under  the  thick 
crust  of  a  selfish  and  worldly  nature.  But  in  them  all 
slumber  the  powers  which  make  of  the  sons  of  men  the 
sons  of  God,  and  the  education  of  their  being  is  the 
unforgetting  care  of  Him  from  whom  they  come  and 
to  whom  they  go.     In  vain  do  they  seek  to  escape  from 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  5 

His  discipline,  and  in  vain  do  they  seek  peace  other- 
where than  in  His  will.  In  the  natural  movement  of 
their  days,  and  quietly  as  the  night  dawns  upon  a  sleep- 
ing world,  or  swiftly  and  sharply  in  one  of  those 

"  strong,  rushing  hours 
That  do  the  work  of  tempests  in  their  might," 

they  will  be  awakened  out  of  their  vulgar  ways  of  living, 
be  made  aware  of  the  depths  of  their  souls,  and  pass 
into  a  new  world  of  experience  and  knowledge. 

St.  Augustine  complained  of  the  people  of  his  day  : 
"  No  man  cares  to  descend  into  himself."  It  is  a  com- 
plaint which  some  of  our  wisest  teachers  are  repeating 
in  our  day.  Few  there  be  who  care  to  go  down  to  the 
depths,  to  have  their  self-complacency  disturbed,  and 
be  made  to  feel  deeply  and  think  deeply.  Most  men 
have  no  inwardness.  They  live  altogether  in  the  out- 
ward. The  brooding,  meditative  gift  is  not  in  them. 
In  past  times  men  suffered  from  excess  of  introspective 
thought,  but  the  disease  which  is  brought  on  by  too 
much  self -reflection  is  not  in  our  day  a  widespread 
epidemic.  Too  much  looking  within  is  not  a  temp- 
tation of  the  modern  man.  There  is  no  country  less 
known  to  him  than  his  own  soul.  "  After  years  of 
life  together,"  he  might  often  confess,  "  my  soul  and  I 
are  strangers  yet."  He  is  afraid  of  deeper  experiences, 
and  reluctant  to  be  on  terms  of  close  intimacy  with 
himself.     He  is  quite  at  home  in  the  visible  and  tern- 


6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

poral  order  of  things,  but  he  is  a  pilgrim  and  a  stranger 
in  what  the  Scottish  seer  called  "  the  Eternities."  From 
the  message  of  the  spiritual  life  he  turns  away  as  if 
it  touched  no  secret  spring  in  his  heart.  It  is  the 
voices  without,  not  the  voices  within,  to  which  he  cares 
to  listen.  Even  in  religion,  though  interested,  and 
perhaps  keenly  interested,  in  the  problems  of  its  external 
life,  in  its  ecclesiastical  and  theological  controversies,  in 
its  sectarian  developments  and  in  its  social  and  philan- 
thropic activities,  he  is  unmoved  by  its  inward  and 
spiritual  power. 

It  is  often  a  sorrowful  surprise  to  the  earnest 
religious  teacher  to  discover  how  slightly  interested  many 
professedly  religious  people  are  in  religion,  and  what  a 
trifling  portion  of  their  time  they  give  to  its  serious 
study.  Thorough,  perhaps,  in  everything  else,  they 
are  content  to  be  superficial  in  all  their  knowledge  of 
the  verities  upon  which  rest  the  world  that  now  is  and 
that  which  is  to  come.  Hence  their  readiness  to  run 
after  crazes  and  phantasies,  and  the  little  it  costs  them 
when  brought  into  contact  with  aggressive  unbelief  to 
give  up  altogether  their  religious  faith.  They  are 
carried  away  for  the  most  part  by  scraps  of  knowledge 
which  have  come  to  them  from  newspapers,  magazines, 
and  popular  novels.  They  have  "outgrown"  what 
they  had  never  really  grown  into,  and  abandoned  what 
they  never  truly  possessed.  There  is  a  saying  of 
Renan's  which  ought  to  be  well  pondered  :  "  In  reality, 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVl  7 

few  persons  have  a  right  to  be  unbelievers."  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  much  of  the  fading  interest  in 
spiritual  and  eternal  things  which  has  marked  the  days 
that  are  passing  over  us,  and  much  also  of  our  scepticism 
and  unbelief,  are  due  to  the  want  of  inwardness,  to  the 
slight  knowledge  men  in  general  have  of  the  depths  of 
their  life,  and  to  atrophy  of  the  spiritual  senses  through 
neglect.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  also,  that  this 
neglect  of  the  inner  life  is  the  explanation  of  the  falling 
back  of  many  in  recent  years  upon  traditional  ecclesias- 
ticism — the  reverting  to  a  lower  type  of  religion  which 
we  once  supposed  had  been  left  behind.  Men  want  a 
certain  amount  of  assured  religious  belief,  but  they 
want  it  without  any  high  and  prolonged  spiritual  effort 
on  their  part.  But  as  long  as  they  remain  strangers  to 
their  own  souls  and  are  content  to  let  others  feel,  think, 
and  believe  for  them,  they  must  be  more  or  less  ignorant 
of  the  reality  of  religion.  We  are  so  made  that  we 
cannot  believe  with  a  real  believing  anything  which 
does  not  answer  in  some  measure  to  our  consciousness 
and  experience.  The  ultimate  appeal  of  religion  is  to 
the  soul.  Outside  of  the  soul,  the  surest  and  most 
convincing  evidence  of  the  realities  of  faith  can  never 
be  found.  The  divinity  within  us  must  be  awake  to 
discern  the  divinity  that  descends  out  of  heaven  and  is 
revealed  in  the  world  and  life.  Without  the  personal 
assurance  which  is  the  result  of  the  actual  satisfaction 
ot  our  spiritual  needs  and  yearnings,  we  are  not  able  to 


8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

appreciate  the  great  testimony  to  God  and  to  the  things 
of  God  borne  by  the  religious  experience  of  mankind — 
the  collective  experience  which  is  named  "  authority  " — 
a  natural  and  genuine  authority  by  which  our  spiritual 
life  is  enriched  and  we  are  freed  from  the  limitation  and 
narrowness  of  the  mere  individual  standpoint.  Also, 
we  can  never  outside  of  the  soul  find  the  true  and 
permanent  ground  and  bond  of  religious  sympathy 
and  fellowship.  On  the  surface  we  are  divided,  often 
to  all  appearance  hopelessly  divided,  but  in  the  depths 
we  are  one.  Debate  and  argument,  views  and  opinions, 
drive  and  keep  us  apart,  but  in  the  depths  we  find  not 
only  ourselves  but  our  brethren — brethren  breathing 
out  the  same  aspirations  and  prayers,  having  the  same 
passion  for  God,  the  same  need  of  God,  and  the  same 
joy  in  God.  It  is  true  of  religion  even  in  its  intel- 
lectual aspect  and  expression,  that  those  who  are  able 
to  go  beneath  the  surface  and  have  the  power  of  insight 
discover  unities  underlying  apparently  serious  differ- 
ences, but  this  is  still  more  true  of  religion  as  an 
experience.  Spiritual  experience — the  experience  of 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul — is  the  highest  liberalising 
influence,  and  the  most  effective  and  satisfying.  It 
gives  one  the  power  to  understand  and  interpret  many 
religious  dialects,  and  to  discern  here  and  now  beneath 
diversities  of  temperament  and  training,  cult  and  creed, 
the  communion  of  saints,  the  universal  Church  of  God — 
the  Church  of  the  Spirit. 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  9 

It  seems  to  me  what  we  most  need  to  bestir  our- 
selves about  in  these  passing  days  is  not  so  much  the 
broadening  as  the  deepening  of  rehgion,  its  deepening 
in  our  own  souls  and  in  the  souls  of  our  fellows.  In 
its  thoughts  of  God  and  His  ways  with  man,  religion 
has  expanded  wonderfully  everywhere  since  the  middle 
of  the  last  century  ;  but  religion  must  have  depth  as 
well  as  breadth.  The  breadth  that  does  not  proceed 
from  depth  is  hardly  worth  having — it  is  certainly  not 
worth  crossing  the  Atlantic  to  recognise  and  honour. 
The  intensive  movement  is  more  vital  to  progressive 
religion  than  any  expansive  or  forward  movement. 
The  course  of  true  religion  is,  indeed,  most  outward 
and  onward  when  it  is  most  inward.  Great  religious 
reformations  ever  date  from  the  quickening  and  deepen- 
ing of  faith  in  the  souls  of  men.  Their  inspiration  and 
energy  are  drawn  from  deeper  depths  than  the  merely 
argumentative  and  systematising  powers  of  the  mind. 
It  is  perhaps  the  most  serious  defect  of  the  liberal 
movement  in  religion  that  it  is  so  much  more  an  intel- 
lectual than  a  spiritual  movement.  It  is  the  constant 
approach  to  the  things  of  God  primarily  through  the 
intellect  which  sterilises  much  of  liberal  religion  every- 
where, makes  of  the  churches  lecture  halls  rather  than 
temples  of  the  Spirit,  and  their  pulpit  a  rabbinised 
pulpit  for  the  exposition  of  philosophical  ideas  and 
doctrines  rather  than  a  place  for  the  delivery  of  a 
message  from    God    to    man.     We   must   go  deeper. 


lo  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Out  of  and  to  the  depths  of  Hfe  we  must  speak.  Mere 
affinity  of  opinion  and  belief  is  far  too  outward  and 
contracted  to  satisfy  men  who  care  much  for  universal 
religion,  and  hope  and  pray  and  work  for  the  Universal 
Church.  Our  great  facts,  the  things  which  in  our 
hearts  we  all  most  regard,  are  in  the  depths,  not  on  the 
surface.  We  are  religious,  not  because  the  credentials  of 
this  or  that  form  of  religion  bears  the  strain  of  critical 
inquiry  and  satisfies  our  critical  reason,  but  because  we 
have  great  moral  and  spiritual  needs  and  experiences  to 
which  we  believe  our  religion  is  a  full  and  perfect 
counterpart,  corresponding  in  a  deep  and  manifold  way 
with  what  we  know  of  ourselves  and  of  life. 

To  the  soul,  then,  we  must  return.  Out  of  it  have 
come  religions,  bibles,  prayers,  liturgies,  psalms,  hymns 
and  spiritual  songs,  and  it  is  still  full  of  the  elements 
of  revelation.  It  is  an  unexhausted  and  inexhaustible 
world.  The  outward  universe,  the  star-sown  abysses 
of  space,  have  none  of  those  mysterious  and  unsearch- 
able depths  which  we  find  in  our  spiritual  being. 
When  we  gaze  on 

"  The  splendour  of  the  morning  sky. 
And  all  the  stars  in  company. 
And  think,  How  beautiful  it  is  ! 
Our  soul  says,  There  is  more  than  this," 

And  there  is  more  than  this.  God  is,  indeed,  imma- 
nent in  the  world  of  nature  and  in  the  order  of  life,  but 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAM  AVI  ii 

He  is  still  more  intimately  present  in  the  soul  of  man. 
Our  spiritual  being  relates  us  immediately  to  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal  Spirit,  and  it  is  this  divine  depth 
of  root  and  resource  which  is  the  explanation  of  all 
our  aspirations  and  the  justification  of  the  most  daring 
hopes  we  can  cherish  of  illimitable  development. 

II.  The  Cry  for  God  out  of  the  Depths 

I.  The  cry  for  God  is  the  natural  utterance  of  the 
awakened  soul  of  man  in  every  land  and  age — the  cry 
of  man  whenever  and  wherever  he  freely  speaks  out  of 
the  depths  of  his  nature,  an  aspiration  which  all  history 
confesses.  It  may  not  always  be  an  intelligent  or  con- 
scious cry,  but  a  seeker  after  God  man  has  always  been 
and  must  ever  be,  because  from  God  he  comes,  begotten, 
not  made,  and  with  a  nature  so  constituted  that  only 
in  God  can  he  find  his  full  and  final  satisfaction  and 
rest.  The  surface  of  his  life  may  often  appear  to  say 
one  thing  and  its  depths  quite  another  thing,  but  it  is 
the  cry  from  the  depths  which  reveals  what  he  truly 
is  and  what  he  most  needs.  It  is  his  inmost  wants  and 
desires,  not  his  hard,  cold  sense  and  keen  understanding, 
which  read  most  rightly  the  secret  of  his  life.  It  is  not 
to  the  surface  of  his  life  his  real  spiritual  needs  belong, 
but  only  those  poor  selfish  cravings  which  are  often 
mistaken  for  them  by  ill-instructed  minds.  Outwardly 
he  may  seem  to  long  and  cry  for  other  things  more 


12  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

than  for  the  presence  of  God,  and  to  find  his  peace 
and  joy  in  them  ;  but  when  his  soul  is  moved  and 
searched,  and  the  fountains  of  its  great  deep  are  broken 
up,  in  all  those  crises  which  throw  light  on  the  inner 
condition  and  movement  of  his  being,  the  cry  for  God 
is  seen  to  be  fundamental,  and  his  longing  to  connect 
his  life  in  some  way  with  the  life  of  the  invisible  and 
eternal  world,  an  irrepressible  longing,  which  tends  ever 
to  rise  into  a  strong  and  intense  passion. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  some  clever  men  found  an 
easy  settlement  of  the  religious  problem  by  dismissing 
religion  as  the  invention  of  priests,  forgetting  that  it 
was  the  religious  instincts  and  wants  which  made  the 
priest  and  his  institutions  at  all  possible.  Man  is  as 
distinctively  a  religious  as  he  is  a  social  being — religious 
for  the  same  reason  as  he  is  domestic,  political,  intel- 
lectual, and  artistic.  It  is  his  nature  unfolding  to 
divine  realities  and  relations,  seeking  its  corresponding 
objects  and  satisfactions.  The  beginnings  of  his  religion, 
like  the  beginnings  of  all  other  things  in  his  history, 
may  be  dim  and  vague  and  feeble,  but  it  ought  to  be 
judged  as  we  judge  the  other  things,  by  its  essential 
quality  and  most  perfect  expression,  and  not  by  its 
early  and  rude  forms,  not  by  the  physical  beginnings 
of  spiritual  instincts  and  the  sense -conceptions  and 
sense -language  of  primitive  religious  feelings.  It  is 
not  independent  of  his  mental  and  moral  development, 
of  his  general  condition  and  culture.     It  grows  as  he 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAM  AVI  13 

grows.  It  is  not  something  grafted  upon  his  nature 
from  without  but  comes  out  of  his  nature — a  com- 
ponent part  of  himself,  which  he  must  train  and  develop. 
Revelation  is  necessary  to  its  purifying  and  perfecting, 
but  revelation  does  not  and  cannot  create  the  religious 
capacity  or  instinct.  For  a  revelation  to  be  received 
and  understood  there  must  be  that  in  man  to  which  it 
appeals — something  in  the  depths  of  his  personal  being 
akin  to  what  is  in  the  infinite  and  unsearchable  depths 
of  God.  Matthew  Arnold  used  to  say  that  religion, 
if  it  is  to  continue,  must  be  based,  not  on  traditions 
and  documents,  but  on  its  natural  truth  ;  and,  of  course, 
that  is  so,  if  by  its  natural  truth  we  mean  its  corre- 
spondence with  the  fundamental  facts  of  life  and  with 
the  generalised  experience  of  mankind.  We  need  have 
no  hesitation  in  affirming  boldly  its  natural  truth  when 
we  call  to  mind  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  history 
of  our  race  older  and  more  universal,  more  central  and 
commanding,  than  religion.  Its  many  and  various  forms, 
the  great  historical  religions  and  the  older  religions 
out  of  which  they  grew,  all  have  their  roots  struck 
deep  in  human  nature.  Whenever  and  wherever  man 
begins  to  reach  the  truly  human  level,  he  begins  to 
worship,  and  the  more  human  he  becomes,  the  more 
do  the  sentiments  of  awe  and  reverence,  dependence 
and  submission,  reinforced  by  the  larger  trusts  which 
longer  and  wider  experience  give  him,  become  natural 
to  him.     It    is  just    because    he    is    what    he    is    that 


14  DE  PROFUNDTS  CLAM  AVI 

his  spiritual  attitude  is  that  of  a  believer  and  wor- 
shipper ;  and  had  he  no  other  Bible  than  his  own 
soul,  he  would  never  be  without  a  living  witness  for 
God.  In  its  wonder  and  awe,  in  its  fear  and  hope,  in 
its  sense  of  goodness  and  truth  and  beauty,  in  its 
aspiration  after  perfection,  in  its  shame  because  of 
failure,  in  its  joy  in  obedience  and  service  and  sacrifice, 
and  in  all  its  idealising  yearnings  which  never  in  these 
mortal  years  get  their  right  and  complete  command 
over  the  life,  he  who  watches  and  studies  wisely  and 
patiently  will  discover  God,  and  from  the  sympathetic 
observation  of  all  such  experiences  have  the  persuasion 
confirmed  that  religion  is  natural  to  man,  and  that  the 
more  of  God  man  takes  into  his  life  the  more  natural 
he  becomes.  It  would  be  easier  to  deny  the  tendency 
of  matter  to  a  common  centre,  or  the  tendency  of  man 
to  draw  to  his  fellows,  than  to  deny  the  native  tendency 
and  movement  of  the  human  soul  to  God.  Its  only 
language  may  be  a  cry,  but  how  full  of  meaning  and 
prophecy  is  that  cry  ! — the  cry  of  the  soul  for  God  as 
it  comes  to  us  down  all  the  ages,  from  every  people 
and  from  every  literature  which  utters  the  mind  of  a 
people,  and  from  the  noblest  spirits  of  every  race  inter- 
preting most  clearly  the  voice  of  humanity  as  it  speaks 
through  them.  "  All  men,"  said  Homer,  "  cry  after 
the  gods."  In  "  every  nation,"  said  St.  Paul,  "  men 
seek  after  the  Lord,  if  haply  they  may  feel  after  Him 
and  find  Him."     "  The  human  soul,"  said  Tertullian, 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  15 

"  is  naturally  Christian.  The  testimonies  of  the  soul 
[to  God]  are  as  true  as  they  are  simple,  as  simple  as 
they  are  universal,  as  universal  as  they  are  natural,  as 
natural  as  they  are  divine."  "  If  we  will  but  listen 
attentively,"  said  Max  Mtiller,  "  we  can  hear  in  all 
religions  a  groaning  of  the  spirit,  a  struggle  to  utter 
the  unutterable,  a  longing  after  the  Infinite,  a  love  of 
God." 

There  is  not,  I  am  persuaded,  even  a  touch  of 
exaggeration  in  the  statement  that  the  greatest  dis- 
covery of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  discovery  of 
the  ancient  religions, — of  what  men  before  Christ  and 
before  Moses,  in  a  dim  and  far  past  and  in  countries  like 
Egypt  and  India,  thought  about  God  and  life.  It  has 
made  us  hear  clearly,  rising  from  every  land  and  from 
every  age,  from  men  divided  by  leagues  of  space  and 
centuries  of  time,  ignorant  and  enlightened,  mean  and 
noble,  the  cry  out  of  the  depths  of  the  soul  for  God, 
even  the  living  God. 

Everywhere  in  our  own  age  as  well  as  in  past  ages 
may  be  heard  the  cry  for  God.  It  is  the  advanced 
spiritual  desire  of  humanity.  To-day,  as  yesterday, 
out  of  the  depths  of  his  soul  man  cries  to  God,  how- 
ever much  his  noisy  passions,  follies  and  cares,  and 
the  tumult  of  the  world,  may  make  inaudible  the  voice 
of  his  deeper  mind  and  deeper  heart.  It  was  once  said 
by  a  celebrated  English  lawyer  of  our  time  that  the 
man  who  could  not  get  on  without  religion,  who  could 


1 6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

not  occupy  his  mind  with  love,  friendship,  business, 
politics,  science,  art,  literature,  and  travel,  must  be  a 
poor  kind  of  creature.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  man 
who  can  be  wholly  satisfied  with  outward  and  earthly 
things  apart  from  God  who  is  the  poor  kind  of  creature, 
living  upon  the  surface  of  his  nature,  with  the  energies 
of  his  spirit  still  dormant,  or  so  suppressed  and  over- 
borne that  they  are  in  danger  of  dying  out.  To  be 
truly  a  man  is  to  have  infinite  capacity  for  God,  to 
have  desires,  affections,  and  needs  which  the  things  of 
civilisation  and  culture  cannot  satisfy,  which  can  only 
be  satisfied  in  communion  with  the  Divine.  Man,  be 
he  what  he  may,  is  made  to  be  a  seeker  after  God  ; 
and,  because  he  cannot  escape  from  himself,  he  cannot 
escape  from  God.  The  cry  for  God  is  heard  as  soon 
as  he  comes  to  himself,  and  it  becomes  clearer  and  more 
persistent,  more  passionate  and  pathetic,  the  further  he 
goes  into  himself.  In  his  more  careless  moods  he  may 
play  with  doubts,  amuse  himself  with  negative  views 
and  cheap  rationalism,  and  treat  religion  as  if  it  were 
merely  something  to  be  examined,  pulled  to  pieces,  and 
criticised  ;  but  out  of  the  depths  of  his  unbelief  the 
unconscious  faith  of  the  soul  never  fails  to  make  itself 
heard.  In  spite  of  crowds  of  easy  livers  here  and 
everywhere  and  the  extraordinary  supply  of  the  means 
of  excitement,  which,  giving  vivid  interest  and  attrac- 
tiveness to  the  outward  life,  tends  to  stupefy  and  deaden 
the  religious  sense,  men  cannot  live  utterly  contented 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAM  AVI  17 

without  God.     The  way  they  are  caught  now  and  again 
by  all  kinds  of  fanaticism  proves  that  the  promise  and 
potency  of  religious  faith  are  still  there.     It  is  also  an 
impressive  fact  that  behind  all  the  surface  play  of  the 
forces  in  modern  life  that  tend  to  obscure  or  even  to 
challenge  and  deny  the  fundamental  religious  beliefs, 
the  religious  nature  of  man  may  be  seen  asserting  itself 
— and  often  in  strange  ways.     The  philosopher's  bold 
statement  that  man  becomes  more  and  more  religious 
is  not  without  warrant.     The  religious  affections  may 
be  changing,  here  and  there,  their  objects  and  modes 
of  expression  ;  but  they  are  not  losing    their  energy. 
The  phenomena  which  are  often  regarded  as  signs  and 
proofs  of  religious  decay  are  more  justly  interpreted  as 
religion    passing  through  a  process  of  transformation. 
There  are  movements  of  thought  and  feeling,  far  below 
the  upper  tides  and  disturbing  agitations  which  we  see 
and  chronicle,  that  bear  silent  but  strong  witness  to  the 
upward-looking    instincts    and  impulses  of  humanity. 
There  is,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  hardly  a  form 
of  the  deeper  thinking  and  deeper  living  of  our  time 
which  does  not  reveal  the  inherent  and  indestructible 
religiousness  of  man.     The  ideal  substitutes  for  God 
upon  which  our  more  serious  and  cultivated  unbelievers 
have  been  spending  their    devotion   these    many  days 
prove  how  deep  in  the  soul  and  unescapable  are  the 
religious  instincts  and  needs.     The  cry  for  truth,  for 
right,  for   justice,  for   love,  is  a  cry    for    God.     The 


1 8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

moments  in  which  men  long  and  strive  most  purely 
and  intensely  for  the  triumph  of  truth  and  justice  and 
love  are  moments  of  unconscious  prayer — the  prayer 
which  includes  in  its  sweep  all  our  unselfish  desires  and 
yearnings  and  strivings.  "  All  my  springs  are  in  thee," 
said  the  Hebrew  psalmist.  God  is  at  the  root  of  all 
our  ethical  aspirations  and  purely  human  enthusiasms, 
and  to  Him  they  lead.  Without  Him  they  remain 
partial  and  fragmentary  ;  only  in  Him  do  they  find  their 
centre  and  unity,  their  strength  and  stay. 

2.  And  thus  are  we  led  to  observe  that  the  cry  for 
God  is  the  aspiration  of  the  whole  nature  of  man  when 
he  is  true  to  it.  It  is  not  an  isolated  thing,  the  expres- 
sion of  one  faculty,  a  single  experience  ;  it  is  in  the 
structure  and  strain  of  our  being,  in  its  living  unity  of 
powers  and  tendencies  and  manifold  needs.  In  all  the 
faculties  and  affections  of  our  complex  nature  we  are 
created  for  God,  and  through  them  all  we  are  meant 
to  rise  upward  to  Him. 

God  is  a  demand  of  the  intellect  as  well  as  a  longing 
and  need  of  the  heart.  Reason  seeks  God  as  much  as 
any  other  of  our  nobler  human  powers,  and  in  the  fully 
and  symmetrically  developed  man  it  is  ever  seen  to  be 
a  faculty  of  reverence.  Out  of  the  depths  of  all  true 
and  earnest  thought  on  the  mystery  of  the  world  and 
life  the  quickened  mind  aspires  to  God,  rises  instinc- 
tively to  the  one  supreme  and  universal  Mind  which 
the  order  of  things  bespeaks,  and  in  which  alone  it  can 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  19 

tind  a  satisfaction  proper  to  its  characteristic  nature. 
Thought  as  it  deepens  confirms  and  justifies  our  own 
religious  aspirations  and  trusts.    You  remember  Shelley's 

line, 

"  O  thou  Immortal  Deity 
Whose  throne  is  in  the  depth  of  human  thought," 

and  the  philosopher's  saying  that,  while  a  little  know- 
ledge inclineth  men  to  atheism,  depth  of  knowledge 
brings  them  back  to  God.  Because  in  mind  as  well  as 
in  heart  and  conscience  man  is  kindred  to  God,  the  full 
development  of  the  mind  must  lead  at  last  to  God,  and 
God,  we  may  be  sure,  has  not  so  made  the  world  that 
the  honest  and  thorough  study  of  it  will  lead  men  away 
from  Himself.  The  complete  witness  of  the  human 
reason  to  God  is  yet  to  come,  but  God  is  its  inevitable 
goal.  The  end  of  all  deep  thinking  must  be  to  put 
men  more  and  more  into  the  mood  and  attitude  of 
worship.  Much  of  the  intellectual  movement  of  our 
times  may  indicate  instability  and  superficiality,  but  in 
its  more  serious  forms  it  is  the  modern  spirit  dissatisfied 
with  old  and  familiar  explanations  of  the  material  and 
spiritual  universe,  yet  seeking  the  innermost  truth  and 
reality  of  things,  crying  in  its  own  way  with  the  ancient 
Hebrew  for  God  and  confessing  with  the  Christian 
saint  that  it  is  restless  until  it  finds  rest  in  Him  who  is 
the  truth  itself. 

And  what  has  been  said  of  deep  thinking  may  be 
said  of  every  form  of  deep  feeling.     It  must  render  us 


20  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

religious,  deep  calling  unto  deep.  The  sense  of  beauty 
which  makes  poets  and  painters,  and  is  more  or  less  in 
all  men,  belongs  to  the  image  of  God  in  man  and  is 
meant  to  put  us  in  touch  with  the  spiritual  and  eternal 
in  all  created  things,  and  to  raise  us  into  communion 
with  Him  to  whom  St.  Anselm  prayed  as  the  Absolute 
Beauty.  Admiration,  the  power  of  perceiving,  appre- 
ciating, and  enjoying  things  lovely  and  great  and 
wonderful,  rises  into  adoration.  Seas  and  skies  and 
mountains,  the  dawn  of  day,  a  night  of  stars,  kindle  in 
the  susceptible  soul  the  sentiments  of  worship.  The 
feeling  which  noble  music  produces  is  of  the  nature  of 
aspiration  ;  it  is  a  longing  toward  some  divine  good, 
consciously  or  unconsciously  a  longing  toward  Him  who 
is  the  source  and  centre  of  all  good  and  all  harmony. 
It  has  been  said  of  the  highest  kind  of  music  that  the 
hearing  of  it  enables  one  to  realise  his  immortality.  It 
touches  and  awakens  some  inner  sense  which  our 
common  experience  only  partially  satisfies  ;  it  fills  the 
mind  with  those  great  and  high  feelings  and  with  those 
far-reaching  thoughts  that  pass  beyond  all  earthly 
bounds  and  wander  through  eternity.  And  the  same 
is  true  of  all  the  deeper  parts  and  passions  of  our  being. 
Our  human  affections  at  their  best  have  their  flower 
and  fruit  in  spiritual  and  heavenly  aspirations.  Our 
human  love  of  goodness  stirs  in  us  the  divine  love,  and 
is  included  in  it,  and  opens  our  nature  to  God  as  the 
sun  opens  the  earth  in  spring.     Our  desire  of  excellence 


DE    PROFUNDIS   CLAM  AVI  21 

— excellence  of  character  and  excellence  of  work — bears 
witness  to  God  and  is  a  cry  after  His  perfection.  Our 
moral  aims  and  strivings  are  fulfilled  in  religion. 
Our  religion  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  deepest  instincts, 
affections,  needs,  and  experiences  of  our  nature.  As 
the  fire  seeks  the  sun  and  the  river  the  ocean,  so  does 
our  life  in  all  its  deeper  and  larger  aspects  move  towards 
Him  who  is  its  beginning  and  its  end.  We  must 
have  God  to  understand  and  explain  our  own  nature 
and  life.  He  is  the  answer  to  all  that  is  good  and  best 
in  ourselves — to  our  powers  of  intellect,  imagination, 
affection,  conscience,  to  our  faculties  of  worship,  aspira- 
tion, and  hope.  "  When  I  awake,"  said  the  Hebrew 
saint,  "  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  God."  "  The  life  of 
man,"  said  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Christian  Church, 
"  is  the  vision  of  God."  Out  of  the  depths  our  souls, 
as  they  awake,  cry  for  God  ;  and  only  with  God  can 
they  be  finally  satisfied  —  only  in  communion  with 
Him,  spirit  with  spirit,  can  be  found  the  fulness  of 
life  and  joy. 

3.  The  cry  for  God  is  an  importunate  cry  in  all  the 
critical  moments  and  experiences  of  life.  What  is 
true  of  the  depths  of  our  nature  is  true  of  the  depths 
of  our  life  as  it  is  lived  in  the  world.  In  its  deep 
places,  where  we  come  face  to  face  with  its  serious 
realities,  we  are  taught  what  we  truly  are  and  are  made 
aware  of  our  divine  relations  and  needs.  Under  the 
pressure  of  critical  emergencies  the  most  fundamental 


22  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

things  in  our  life  come  to  the  surface.  In  our  great 
and  sore  straits,  if  at  no  other  time,  the  soul  reveals  its 
divine  kinship  and  lifts  its  cry  to  God. 

It  is  true  that  our  deep  experiences  are  not  all 
sorrowful.  Joy  may  be  as  profound  as  grief,  and  out 
of  the  depths  of  joy  every  sound-hearted  man  breathes 
forth  his  gratitude,  not  merely  for  good  achieved  or 
found,  but  good  received.  In  all  its  supreme  moments 
life  turns  inevitably  to  God.  In  all  our  deep  experiences 
God  has  a  part,  and  almost  in  spite  of  ourselves  we 
recognise  it. 

But  be  glad  and  grateful  as  we  may  and  ought  to  be 
for  all  that  brightens  and  sweetens  life,  yet  as  things  are 
now  it  is  sorrow  more  than  happiness  that  drives  us  to 
God.  We  have  a  nature  endowed  with  infinite  capaci- 
ties for  pain,  and  there  is  no  escape  but  an  ignoble  one 
from  some  form  of  the  pain  which  makes  the  cross  the 
true  symbol  of  a  large  part  of  every  man's  life.  "  Per- 
haps to  suffer,"  wrote  the  Swiss  theologian,  Vinet,  in 
one  of  his  letters,  "  is  nothing  else  than  to  live  deeply. 
Love  and  sorrow  are  the  conditions  of  a  profound  life." 
A  truer  word  was  never  spoken.  The  tragedy  in  which 
we  live  is  meant  to  educate  us.  There  would  indeed  be 
no  understanding  of  life  at  all  did  we  not  know  from 
experience  that  in  life's  depths  we  receive  our  best 
teaching  and  training.  Out  of  the  depths  have  come 
the  finest  poetry,  the  finest  music,  the  finest  speech  of 
the  world.     "  The  Bible  owes  its  place  in  literature," 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVl  23 

said  Emerson,  "  not  to  miracles,  but  to  the  fact  that 
it  comes  from  a  profounder  depth  of  life  than  any 
other  book."  Out  of  the  depths  have  come  the  most 
inspired  and  inspiring  of  the  psalms  of  faith,  both 
ancient  and  modern.  Out  of  the  depths  men  have 
brought  blessings  which  are  rarely  found  in  green 
pastures  and  by  still  waters.  We  never  know  how 
much  God  is  the  one  great  need  of  the  soul  till  we  go 
down  to  the  depths. 

There  are  depths  of  physical  weakness  and  suffering 
out  of  which  men  cry  to  Him  whose  will  concerning 
them  they  often  forget  in  health  and  ease,  and  only 
remember  when  sickness  comes  in  and  shuts  out  the 
world. 

There  are  worldly  anxieties  and  losses  which  rudely 
break  up  all  the  shallow  optimism  that  has  no  deeper 
root  than  the  self-complacency  produced  by  prosperity, 
and  which  take  men  down  below  the  surface  of  life  into 
its  deep  places  where  they  learn  to  pray,  or  to  pray  as 
they  never  prayed  before. 

There  is  the  sorrow  of  bereavement,  common  yet 
never  commonplace,  the  pain  that  comes  from  broken 
fellowships  ;  and  in  their  spiritual  solitude  and  desola- 
tion men  are  driven  to  seek  higher  help  and  comfort 
than  any  which  the  world  can  give. 

There  are  experiences  of  fallibility  in  understanding 
what  we  ought  to  do  ;  critical  hours  in  life  when  serious 
responsibilities  press,  and  grave  questions  which  mere 


24  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

acuteness  cannot  settle  ;  and  men,  in  their  extremity, 
feel  the  need  of  a  wisdom  which  they  do  not  find  in 
themselves,  and  of  a  guidance  which  their  fellows  cannot 
give,  and  they  cry  unto  God,  "  Lead  me  and  teach  me." 

There  are  depths  of  disappointment  and  failure  in 
our  best  work, — sympathies  imperfectly  met,  misplaced 
trusts,  broken  purposes,  and  defeated  hopes  ;  and  it  is 
especially  the  ministry  of  failure  even  in  the  noblest 
things  to  draw  forth  the  powers  latent  in  every  human 
being,  and  to  make  God  felt  as  the  one  supreme  neces- 
sity of  life. 

There  is  the  struggle  with  moral  limitation  and 
weakness, — the  sensitive  temperament,  the  ill-balance 
of  a  finely  endowed  mind,  the  want  of  will-power,  the 
over-growth  of  impulses  good  in  themselves, — inherit- 
ances which  make  life  so  tragic  to  many — the  struggle 
with  forces  within  and  forces  without  which  seem 
adverse  to  a  noble  development,  and  which  make  the 
most  aspiring  and  faithful  souls  feel  that  they  cannot 
do  the  things  they  would. 

The  psalm  from  which  our  text  is  taken  is  familiar 
to  many  devout  people  as  one  of  the  seven  penitential 
psalms.  It  was  dear  on  this  account  to  Chrysostom, 
Augustine,  Savonarola,  Luther,  Hooker,  Owen,  Baxter, 
Wesley,  and  to  many  more  of  the  elect  spirits  of  our  race. 
And  it  surely  cannot  be  that  any  man  capable  of  deep 
feeling  can  be  wholly  ignorant  of  the  saddest  tragedy  of 
human  life  which  is  seen  in  the  conflict  between  desire 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  25 

and  duty,  in  the  effort  to  reconcile  the  ideal  and  the  actual, 
and  to  be  at  peace  with  God.  Who  does  not  know  of 
this  struggle,  interpret  it  how  he  may  ?  Who  has  not 
cried  out  in  the  agony  of  it,  O  wretched  man  that  I  am, 
who  shall  deliver  me  ?  When  before  the  tribunal  of 
his  heart  one  passes  in  review  the  irrevocable  years, 
what  wonder  if 

"  Oft  his  cogitations  sink  as  low 
As,  through  the  abysses  of  a  joyless  heart, 
The  heaviest  plummet  of  despair  can  go." 

Though  it  is  only  one  experience  of  the  spiritual  life 
and  must  not  be  allowed  to  overshadow  all  the  rest,  yet 
the  sense  of  dissatisfaction,  deepening  into  the  sense  of 
guilt,  lies  near  the  heart  of  all  personal  religion  worthy 
of  the  name.  It  marks  the  awakening  of  the  higher 
life  ;  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  upward  movement. 
The  worst  conscience  is  not  the  one  which  is  most 
sensitive  to  evil  and  most  troubled  by  wrong  things 
done  and  good  things  left  undone,  but  the  conscience 
which  is  so  dull  as  to  have  no  experience  of  guilty  pangs 
and  terrors,  and  which  can  make  its  possessor  able  to 
fit  his  greatest  transgressions  into  a  self-satisfied  view 
and  scheme  of  life,  and  to  reconcile  himself  to  memories 
of  passion  and  shame.  In  men  morally  healthy  and 
well  developed  the  sense  of  sin,  of  evil  done  with  full 
consent  of  the  will,  is  a  reality,  not  a  shallow  emotion  ; 
it  is  a  profound  grief,  the  thought,  not  of  their  weaker 


26  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

moments,  but  of  their  sanest  hours.     It  Is  simply  self- 
knowledge. 

It  is  a  universal  law  of  the  higher  life  that  the 
better  a  man  becomes  the  more  sensitive  he  is  to  sin,  and 
not  only  to  his  own  sin,  but  to  the  sins  of  his  fellows, 
the  sins  of  the  nation,  of  society,  of  the  church,  of  the 
community  in  which  he  lives.  It  is  the  best  men  who 
feel  most  keenly  the  burden  of  human  iniquity  and 
confess  the  abounding  moral  evil  of  the  world  as  if 
it  were  their  own  evil ;  it  is  they  who  are  most  con- 
scious of  the  wrongdoing  of  their  fellows  and  suffer 
most  on  account  of  it,  and  not  the  actual  wrongdoers 
themselves.  It  was  so  with  the  Hebrew  poet.  The 
pathos  of  the  great  lovers  and  helpers  of  mankind 
is  in  his  psalm.  It  is  the  utterance  of  an  intensely 
personal  emotion,  but  it  is  more  than  personal.  He 
speaks  in  the  name  of  Israel,  merging  his  own  feeling 
in  the  shame  and  repentance  of  his  people.  "  I  wish," 
said  that  great  prophet  and  saint  of  God,  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice,  "  to  confess  the  sins  of  my  land 
and  time  as  my  own."  It  is  almost  impossible  to 
imagine  a  truly  godly  life  without  this  underlying 
sensitiveness  and  sadness,  without  this  suffering  heart 
of  holy  love  and  sympathy  which  is  the  thing  likest 
God  in  this  world. 

In  ancient  India,  perhaps  more  than  fifteen  hundred 
years  before  our  psalm  was  written,  men  sung  a  hymn 
which  obviously  came  out  of  the  same  experience  as 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVl  27 

this  passionate  Hebrew  poem  of  penitence  and  prayer. 
It  was  translated  out  of  the  dead  Sanscrit  tongue  by 
Prof.  Max  Muller.     These  are  the  English  words  : — 

Let  me  not  yet,  O  my  God,  enter  into  the  house  of  clay  : 

Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy. 
If  I  go  trembling  like  a  cloud  driven  by  the  wrind  : 

Have  mercy.  Almighty,  have  mercy. 
Through  want  of  strength,  thou  strong  and  bright  God,  have 
I  gone  wrong  : 

Have  mercy.  Almighty,  have  mercy. 
Wherever  we  men,  O   God,  commit  an  offence    before  the 

heavenly  host  : 
Wherever  we  break  the  law  through  thoughtlessness  : 

Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy. 

III.  The  Divine  Answer  to  the  Cry  out  of 
THE    Depths 

Is  there  any  divine  response  to  the  call  of  humanity 
for  God,  to  these  many  and  varied  cries  out  of  the 
depths  of  our  human  being  and  life  ?  There  must 
be  in  the  nature  of  things,  we  are  persuaded,  such  a 
response,  something  outside  of  man  answering  to  his 
inner  life  and  fulfilling  its  needs,  actual  movement  and 
manifestation  on  the  part  of  God  corresponding  to 
our  natural  cravings  after  Him.  Out  of  the  depths 
man  cries,  down  to  the  depths  God  must  come,  meeting 
with  a  corresponding  answer  every  real  want  of  the  souls 
He  has  made  to  seek  after  Him,  if  haply  they  may 


28  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

feel  after  Him  and  find  Him.     Whatever  may  be  the 
relations    between    human    aspiration   and  divine  con- 
descension, whatever  be  the  conditions  of  the  coming 
down  of  the  heavenly  help  to  human  need,  it  is  simply 
impossible  for  any  religious  soul  to  think  that  there  is 
no  approach  of  God  to  man.    Unless  life  be  a  tremendous 
unreality  and  illusion,  and  we  come  into  the  world  only 
to  be  fooled  and  cheated  ;  unless  the  universe  departs 
from  its  order  in  dealing  with  the  spiritual  necessities 
of  mankind  and  the  cry  for  God  meets  with  exceptional 
treatment,  quite  unlike  that  given  to  the  other  functions 
and  attitudes  of  our  nature — it  is  simply  inconceivable 
that  the  fundamental  cravings  of    the    soul    can   exist 
without  their  satisfaction,  and  the  prayer  from  the  depths 
remain  unanswered.     Many  of  our  religious  teachers 
may  say  too  much  on  this  matter  and  speak  presumptu- 
ously of  what  God  has  done  and  can  do,  but  their  over- 
statements to  those  who  are  living  in  the  consciousness 
and  communion  of  God  are  better  and  nearer  the  truth 
than  denials  and  negations.     It  is,  indeed,  not  difficult 
to  believe  in  divine  condescension,  in    an    answering, 
revealing,  redeeming  God,  when  one  truly  believes  in 
God — believes,  that  is,  in  infinite  and  eternal  goodness. 
It  appears  inevitable  that  man  should  look  with  longing 
and  hope  for  help  from  on  high, — for  he  cannot  under- 
stand his  life,  its  whence  and  why  and  whither,  apart 
from  God.     It  cannot  be,  he  is  sure,  that  having  no 
choice  of    existence,  he  should  be  here  in  this  world 


DE   PROFUNDIS    CLAMAVI  29 

endowed  with  a  mysterious  nature,  called  to  live  a  life 
full  of  most  serious  significance,  without  the  presence 
and  help  of  God.     He  has  a  right,  he  feels,  to  trust 
Him  from  whom  he  comes,  and  to  believe  that  no  light 
from  heaven  can  lead  astray,  least  of    all  those  great 
religious  aspirations  and  wants  which  have  lived  through 
all  human  ages,  over-reaching  all  stretches  of  history, 
and  are  still  the  highest  necessities  of  the  soul.     No 
strong  crying  and  tears  will    make    God    answer    our 
selfish  or  fictitious  wants  ;  but  that  He  is  responsive  to 
what  is  best  in  man,  that  He  is  answering  day  after  day, 
age    after    age,  the    spiritual   aspirations  and  needs  of 
humanity,  is  a  necessary  belief  to  everyone.  Christian 
or  non-Christian,  who  admits  the  reality  and  closeness  of 
the  bond  between  God  and  man,  and  the  affinity  of  man 
for  that  life  in  God  which  is  the  true  end  of  his  being. 
"  O    Israel,  hope  in  the  Lord  ;    for  with  the  Lord 
there  is    mercy  and  plenteous  redemption."     "  He  is 
mindful  of  His  own  :   He  remembers  His  children." 
The  movement  cannot  be  all  on  the  side  of  man.     Job 
had  caught  a  glimpse  of  an  eternal  truth  of  life  when 
he  rested  his  hope  of  vindication  and  deliverance  upon 
the  desire  which  his   Maker  had  toward  the  work  of 
His  hands.     That  the  desire  of  God  has  brooded  over 
humanity  from  the  beginning,  and  still  broods  over  the 
life  of  the  children  of  men,  is  a  thought  which  holds  a 
central  place  in  the  literature  of  religion  ;  and  however 
difficult  it  may  be  to  reconcile  this  lovely,  human  way 


30  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

of  thinking  of  God  with  our  abstract  conceptions  of 
Deity,  it  brings  us  closer,  we  feel  sure,  to  the  divine 
reality  of  things  than  ways  which  we  may  fancy  to  be 
grander  and  more  philosophical.  We  are  fond  of  con- 
trasting the  littleness  of  man  and  the  awful  brevity  of 
his  days  upon  this  earth  with  the  immeasurable  creation 
which  science  reveals ;  but  if  God  be  love,  then  our 
passionate  human  life  must  be  more  to  Him  than  a 
whole  universe  of  passionless  worlds.  What  answer 
can  masses  of  clay  and  stone,  however  huge  and  old, 
give  to  the  desire  of  His  heart  ?  Can  we  frame  any 
worthy  thought  of  God  which  excludes  the  idea  of  His 
longing  for  the  love  and  trust  and  obedience  of  His 
children  ?  If  the  word  "  Father  "  spells  but  one  syllable 
of  the  Divine  name,  then  we  may  speak  not  only  of 
man's  need  of  God,  but  reverently  of  God's  need  of 
man — of  divine  love  that  seeks  the  answering  love  of 
its  sons  and  daughters,  of  Deity  ever  going  forth  out 
of  the  abysmal  depths  of  His  perfection  to  give  Himself 
to  His  creation  and  His  children  because  it  is  His 
nature  and  property  so  to  do. 

It  is  told  of  Pascal  that  often  he  seemed  to  hear  God 
saying  to  him,  "  Thou  couldst  not  seek  Me  had  I  not 
already  found  thee."  Yes  !  we  seek  God  because  He 
has  first  sought  and  found  us.  The  cry  out  of  the 
depths  is  more,  therefore,  than  a  mere  human  breath- 
ing— it  is  itself  a  divine  inspiration.  Our  pure  unselfish 
longings  for  truth  and  goodness,  our  prayers  for  union 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAM  AVI  31 

with  God,  are,  as  St.  Paul  taught  long  ago,  the  Spirit 
making  intercession  for  us, — that  highest  human  voice 
which  is  ever  one  with  the  Divine  voice,  which  is  the 
Divine  voice  rising  from  the  depths  of  our  humanity 
and  speaking  through  our  spiritual  needs.  In  the 
movements  of  the  human  spirit  we  see  the  workings 
of  the  Divine  spirit.  It  is  the  Divine  love  of  goodness 
that  cries  out  in  us  when  conscience  bears  witness  for 
good.  It  is  the  Divine  hatred  of  evil  that  cries  out  in 
us  when  conscience  awakes  in  protest  against  evil.  It 
is  because  we  are  made  in  the  moral  image  of  God  and 
are  united  to  Him,  not  by  baptism  or  conversion,  but 
by  creation,  that  our  whole  nature  thrills  with  what 
moves  the  Divine  nature.  In  its  last  analysis  there  can 
be  no  noble  aspiration  in  man  which  is  not  an  impulse 
from  Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.  In  the  realm  of  our  inner  life  God  does  not 
begin  His  work  where  we  leave  off.  It  is  not  man 
down  here  and  God  up  there,  with  a  vast  stretch  of 
distance  between.  In  all  the  experiences  of  our  life 
and  growth  He  is  present,  mingling  His  life  with  ours, 
silently  and  potently.  Not  here  and  there,  not  now 
and  then,  but  always  and  everywhere  He  is  near, 
acting  upon  the  human  spirit  from  within  as  well  as 
from  without,  immediately  as  well  as  mediately,  speak- 
ing down  to  and  up  from  the  depths  of  the  heart  and 
conscience — deep  answering  to  deep. 

We    interpret,    and    rightly    interpret,    the    various 


32  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

religions  of  mankind  as  man  seeking  God  ;  but  they 
may  also  be  regarded,  and  rightly  regarded,  as  God 
seeking  man.  "  Unaided  reason,"  men  have  been  in 
the  way  of  exclaiming,  as  they  contemplated  the  various 
religious  systems  of  the  world  outside  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Christian  religions.  But  we  may  well  ask, 
with  Cardinal  Newman,  whether  the  reason  of  man  is 
ever  unaided  .'*  There  are  not  two  kinds  of  religion — 
natural  and  revealed.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
human  capacity  and  seeking  and  effort  all  religion  is 
natural  :  from  the  point  of  view  of  divine  manifesta- 
tion all  religion  is  revealed.  The  Logos  doctrine  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  whatever  else  it  teaches,  teaches 
the  divine  activity  in  our  world  from  the  beginning. 
It  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  God  neglected 
the  larger  part  of  mankind  because  of  His  more 
intimate  dealings  with  one  section  of  the  human  race. 
It  must  be  true,  if  God  be  one  and  His  name  one, 
that  men  of  like  passions  and  needs  as  ourselves,  who 
come  from  God  and  belong  to  God,  and  are  nourished 
physically  by  His  air  and  sunshine  and  fruits  of  the 
earth,  must  also  have  provision  made  in  the  divine 
order  of  things  for  the  sustenance  of  their  spiritual  life, 
and  that  it  is  not  left  entirely  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
their  fellows  whether  they  shall  have  God  or  be  without 
God  in  the  world.  It  must  be  true  that  God  cares 
equally  for  the  souls  of  all  His  children,  and  that  He 
finds  access  to  them,  helps  them,  teaches  them,  com- 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  33 

forts  them,  saves  them,  by  methods  and  means  that  are 
not  seen  and  temporal,  and  by  ways  in  which  no  man 
can  tell  whence  He  cometh  and  whither  He  goeth  ; 
and  that  He  is  only  limited  in  the  giving  of  Himself 
to  them  by  their  capacity  to  respond  and  receive. 
People  of  old  used  to  think  that  the  Divine  action 
was  confined  to  here  and  there,  now  and  then  ;  but 
the  conviction  is  growing  and  spreading  that  the  only 
defensible  conception  of  the  moral  action  of  God  on 
humanity  is  that  of  a  continuous  and  impartial  influence 
limited  to  no  age  or  race.  To  our  enlightened  feeling 
it  is  becoming  more  and  more  presumptuous  to  say 
that  His  spirit  can  only  work  along  one  line  of  human 
thought,  or  can  only  bring  men  to  Himself  through 
one  set  of  defined  successions  of  emotion  or  experience. 
Personal  intimacy  with  God  is  not  an  experience  special 
to  Jews  or  Christians.  The  knowledge  of  the  revela- 
tion of  God  in  Hebrew  and  Christian  history  is  an 
unspeakable  blessing,  but  those  whom,  in  the  order  of 
Providence,  it  never  reaches,  are  not  thereby  excluded 
from  the  communion  of  the  spirit.  A  truer  and  larger 
faith  in  God  as  the  everlasting  Father  and  Teacher  and 
Saviour  of  mankind  has  made  it  no  longer  possible  for 
intelligent  and  believing  men  to  regard  all  religions 
outside  the  Jewish  and  Christian  pale  as  superstition 
and  falsehood,  or  to  keep  up  the  old  pitying  and  con- 
descending attitude  towards  them.  Their  immaturities 
and  corruptions  we  no  longer  allow  to  cheat  us  of  the 

3 


34  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

right  to  say  :  God  is  good  to  all  ;  whither  shall  we  go 
from  His  Spirit  ?  He  has  never  left  Himself  without  a 
witness,  never  left  multitudes  of  His  creatures  without 
His  help,  without  light  and  guidance,  without  comfort 
and  salvation. 

"  The  Unseen  Power,  whose  eye 
For  ever  doth  accompany  mankind. 
Hath  look'd  on  no  religion  scornfully 

That  man  did  ever  find. 

"  Which  has  not  taught  weak  wills  how  much  they  can  ? 
Which  has  not  fallen  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain  ? 
Which  has  not  cried  to  sunk,  self-weary  man  : 
TJwu  must  be  horn  again  I " 

The  deep  needs  of  the  soul  which  make  man  look 
longingly  for  help  from  above  and  beyond  himself,  even 
from  God,  may  be  interpreted  as  a  cry  for  knowledge 
of  Him  with  whom  he  has  to  do,  a  cry  for  reconciliation 
or  union  with  Him,  a  cry  for  light  and  guidance,  a  cry 
for  strength  and  consolation  and  peace.  The  divine 
response  to  this  vast  and  varied  cry  of  humanity  has 
been  made,  we  believe,  though  in  varying  degrees,  to 
the  whole  race  of  mankind. 

"  Tell  me,  I  pray  Thee,  Thy  name,"  is  a  cry  out  of 
the  depths  which  man  has  raised  to  God  in. every  land 
and  age.  It  is  as  natural  as  it  is  vital.  To  know  the 
character  of  the  Unseen  Power  that  orders  our  birth 
and  death  and  all  our  life,  and  what  His  relation  and 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  35 

attitude  are  to  those  whom  He  made  to  seek  after  Him, 
is  a  craving  which  every  human  being  exercising 
normal  powers  must  at  times  feel  and  express.  And 
in  some  way  and  some  measure  God  has  been  answer- 
ing this  cry,  been  revealing  Himself  to  man  through 
all  the  ages  of  man's  life  here  upon  this  earth.  Reve- 
lation has  been  slow  and  gradual,  not  because  of  any 
Divine  reluctance  or  caprice,  but  because  it  waits 
upon  human  development,  upon  the  quickening  and 
unfolding  of  man's  highest  powers.  In  troubled  and 
bewildered  hours  man  has  been  heard  complaining, 
"  Verily  Thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  Thyself  "  ;  and  yet 
the  light  has  ever  come  as  fast  as  he  could  bear  it  and 
receive  it.  There  is  no  want  of  revelation.  There  is, 
indeed,  nothing  but  revelation.  From  the  beginning 
God  has  been  revealing  Himself  to  men  by  the  order 
and  beauty  and  bounty  of  the  world,  through  the 
natural  affections,  by  the  teaching  and  discipline  of  life 
and  the  education  of  history.  Knowledge  of  nature 
and  man  is  knowledge  of  God.  In  finding  order, 
harmony,  bounty,  beauty,  truth,  wisdom,  justice,  good- 
ness, and  love,  God  is  found.  It  is  all  revelation — from 
nature  to  man  and  from  man  to  highest  man.  God 
has  ever  been  actively  present  in  the  world,  and  espe- 
cially in  man  and  in  the  upward  movements  of  his 
intellectual  and  moral  life.  We  dare  not  pretend  to 
limit  the  ways  by  which  He  makes  known  His  per- 
sonality and  His  presence,  and  moves,  illuminates,  and 


36  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

guides  His  children.  He  draws  nigh  to  them,  not 
only  in  and  through  His  creation  and  the  course  of 
history,  not  only  through  the  teaching  and  example  of 
His  great  prophets,  holy  servants,  and  beloved  sons, 
but  immediately — mind  with  mind,  spirit  with  spirit. 
In  all  ages  men  have  had  experience  of  an  immediate 
presence — of  a  God  who  has  access  to  their  inmost 
being  and  acts  in  their  secret  life,  who  reveals  Himself 
by  impressions  upon  their  spirits,  and  whose  voice, 
when  they  are  hushed  to  listen,  is  heard,  not  in  their 
ears,  but  in  their  souls. 

Yes  !  God  is  ever  coming  down  into  our  life — 
coming  more  and  more.  His  Advent  is  unceasing  ; 
new  light  from  the  Eternal  source  of  light  is  ever  flow- 
ing into  human  souls.  What  is  needed  is  not  more 
activity  of  manifestation  on  the  part  of  God,  but  more 
susceptibility  to  the  Divine  manifestation  on  our  part — 
souls  which  we  take  pains  with  for  the  sake  of  the 
unseen  and  spiritual,  and  try  to  make  sensitive  to  God. 

The  cry  of  our  humanity  for  reconciliation  and  union 
with  God  is  also  a  cry  which  God  is  ever  answering. 
The  great  obstacle  to  religion  in  our  world  is  not 
ignorance,  but  sin.  More  than  enlightenment,  we 
need  salvation.  Can  all  our  civilisation  minister  to  a 
troubled  conscience  ^  Can  all  our  culture  heal  a  guilty 
pang  .'*  Can  the  knowledge  of  any  scientific,  philoso- 
phical, or  theological  truth  subdue  an  evil  passion  ? 
But  in  the  depths  of  our  weakness  and  sin  God  is  our 


DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI  37 

salvation.  The  deliverance  of  man  is  dear  to  God. 
It  is  the  essential  nature  of  love  to  seek  and  to  save. 
Because  God  is  love  He  is  ever  coming  down  to  the 
depths  of  our  life,  depths  of  sorrow  and  sin,  the  deepest 
depths  of  degradation,  in  order  to  help  and  to  bring  to 
Himself  by  all  the  power  of  His  love  His  wayward 
and  disobedient  children.  Whether  it  be  a  fallen  or 
a  rising  world  we  live  in,  we  know  in  our  hearts  that 
we  need  reconciliation  with  the  God  of  the  world. 
Blessed  be  His  eternal  love  !  He  has  never  been 
outside  His  world,  but  has  been  always  in  it,  bearing 
the  sins  and  carrying  the  sorrows  of  our  race.  Its 
history  is  the  history  of  redemption,  the  history  of 
the  unceasing  efforts  of  Him  with  whom  we  have  to 
do,  to  influence  without  compelling  the  vagrant  and 
stubborn  wills  of  men.  Through  all  the  human  ages, 
ever  since  sin  began  to  darken  the  face  of  the  world, 
the  seeking  and  saving  love  of  God  has  been  a  reality. 
All  the  great  attitudes  and  acts  of  God  are  eternal. 
"  That  which  was  from  the  beginning  declare  we  unto 
you."  "  His  goings  forth  have  been  of  old  and  from 
everlasting."  He  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  Himself,  but  Christ  did  not  commence  the  Divine 
ministry  of  reconciliation,  nor  did  He  exhaust  or  end 
it.  The  work  of  Christ  is  based  on  the  deeper  and 
larger  fact  of  the  love  and  mercy  and  care  of  the 
Eternal  toward  all  mankind.  We  are  learning  its 
deepest  lesson  when  we  see  in  it  a  picture  of  what  God 


38  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

is  always  doing  :  always  helping  His  children,  always 
saving  them  in  His  infinite  goodness  and  mercy.  And 
as  it  was  then,  it  is  now  and  ever  shall  be,  world 
without  end. 

And  not  only  through  Christ,  and  men  inspired  with 
the  spirit  of  His  life  and  the  charity  of  His  Cross,  does 
God  reconcile  the  world  to  Himself  ;  but  the  whole 
constitution  and  course  of  things  are  so  ordered  as  to 
bring  men  at  every  point  into  contact  with  God  as  the 
God  of  salvation.  The  supernatural  works  everywhere 
through  the  natural,  the  Divine  through  the  human. 
Unto  Nature  and  unto  all  the  forces  which  enter  into 
human  life  have  been  committed  the  ministry  of  recon- 
ciliation. One  God  worketh  through  all  and  towards 
the  same  good  and  gracious  ends.  There  is  no  weak 
compassion  in  Nature,  but  there  is  no  want  of  mercy 
and  tenderness  and  grace.  Its  laws  so  perfect  convert 
the  soul,  and  its  severity  as  related  to  man  is  part  and 
means  of  his  discipline  and  education.  The  external 
conditions  and  incidents  of  life  are  all  providential,  and 
however  they  may  be  produced,  God  deals  with  us 
through  them,  moving  us  to  forsake  sin,  and  to  find  in 
His  order  and  will  our  peace. 

And  not  only  without  but  within  his  life  does  God 
work  on  man,  stirring  his  soul,  inclining  and  strengthen- 
ing him  to  follow  the  good,  yet  with  no  sense  to  him 
of  constraint,  but  only  of  quickening  and  co-operation. 
We  seek  God  because  He  first  seeks  us.      And  the 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  39 

meeting-place  is  often  in  the  lowest  depths,  where  we 
are  struggling  with  weakness  and  sin,  or  are  sinking 
under  them.  At  the  point  where  sin  leaves  us  in  the 
darkness  of  shame  and  despair  God  in  His  mercy  finds 
us,  and  is  nigh  to  help  and  save. 

The  most  central  truth  of  our  religion  is  just  the 
helpfulness,  the  universal  and  eternal  helpfulness,  of 
God.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  religion  of  the  Hebrew 
poets  and  prophets.  "  O  Israel,  thou  hast  destroyed 
thyself,  but  in  JVIe  is  thy  help."  "  In  God  is  my  sal- 
vation and  my  glory  ;  the  rock  of  my  strength  and  my 
refuge  is  in  God."  This,  also,  when  we  put  aside  all 
those  strange  accretions  which  have  gathered  about  it 
in  its  passage  through  the  thoughts  of  men,  is  the 
message  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  God  was  the  Eternal 
Shepherd  of  souls,  who  seeks  until  He  finds.  It  is  the 
message  which  the  Church  has  been  repeating  age  after 
age,  clearly  or  faintly,  in  differing  and  often  confusing 
phrase  :  God  is  with  us — with  us  in  the  deepest  depths, 
with  us  in  bur  greatest  humiliations,  with  us  in  our 
bitterest  shames,  with  us  in  our  terriblest  sorrows,  with 
us  to  forgive  and  save,  to  strengthen  and  comfort.  It 
is  the  glory  of  Jesus  Christ  that  to-day,  as  yesterday, 
He  inspires  men  who  come  directly  under  His  influence 
with  this  enthusiasm  of  faith  in  the  redeeming  mercy 
and  love  of  the  Eternal.  To  those  of  us  who  have 
been  born  in  Christendom  the  hope  of  the  old  Hebrew 
saint  in  plenteous  mercy  and    redemption,  in  infinite 


40  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

resources  of  saving  love  and  power  in  the  Divine  nature, 
is  ours  in  yet  greater  fulness.  The  gospel  of  Him  who 
sounded  the  depths  of  human  sorrow  and  sin,  who 
descended  to  hell  in  another  and  truer  sense  than  is 
meant  in  the  Creed,  who  went  down  into  the  depths  of 
the  world's  evil  and  felt  its  power — His  gospel  is  a 
gospel  of  hope.  What  is  emphatically  His  secret  is 
the  new  and  greater  trust  and  hope  in  God  which  He 
implanted  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  His  most 
central  thought  concerning  human  suffering  is  that 
it  is  joy  in  the  making.  His  most  central  thought 
concerning  abounding  sin  is  more  abounding  grace — 
infinite  possibilities  of  moral  recovery  and  repair.  Men 
and  women  !  haunted  and  persecuted  by  sleepless 
memories  of  passion  and  failure  and  shame,  you  have 
no  right  to  despair  of  yourselves,  for. that  is  to  doubt 
God.  His  love  is  deeper  than  all  the  depths  of  moral 
evil  into  which  you  can  sink.  The  hope  of  salvation 
to  the  uttermost  has  ever  come  to  men  through  the 
experience  of  real  and  intimate  fellowship  with  God. 
In  all  lands  and  ages  the  men  who  have  stood  nearest 
God  have  believed  most  grandly  in  His  infinite  charity 
and  grace.  Through  Him  who  said  that  He  was  one 
with  the  Father  has  been  preached  unto  the  world  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  Because  God  is  love,  holy  and 
inexorable  love.  He  must  be  for  ever  and  ever  a  God 
who  forgiveth  sin — the  infinite  giver  of  a  power  that 
makes    men  better,    filling    them    with   new   tempers. 


DE   PROFUNDIS   CLAMAVI  41 

new  affections,  new  loyalties,  through  which  the  weak 
become  strong  and  the  bad  good — the  infinite  giver  of 
a  power  which  takes  away  sin  in  the  only  sense  sin  can 
ever  be  taken  away,  by  making  the  sinner  hate  his  sin, 
turn  against  it  and  away  from  it,  and  love  and  follow 
the  good. 

In  recent  days  we  have  heard  much,  perhaps  too  much, 
of  "  Old  Theology  "  and  "  New  Theology."  What  is 
described  as  the  Old  Theology  made  much  of  the  sense 
of  sin  and  the  need  of  forgiveness.  It  regarded  human 
nature  chiefly  under  the  aspect  of  sinfulness  and  guilt. 
It  forgot  that  human  nature  is  not  a  simple  and  single 
thing,  and  that  a  gospel  to  commend  itself  to  all  men 
must  be  wide  as  human  need.  Its  marvellous  strength 
in  the  days  when  it  was  heartily  accepted  and  believed 
grew  out  of  its  lirnitations,  but  these  also  were  the  cause 
of  its  weakness  and  its  decay.  It  provoked  a  reaction 
from  which  we  are  at  present  suffering.  Our  liberal 
theology  is  too  often  just  as  partial  and  one-sided, 
failing  to  meet  the  needs  with  which  the  old  orthodox 
presentation  of  religion  chiefly  dealt.  A  well-meaning 
religious  teacher  was  speaking  on  the  beauty  of  goodness 
to  a  gathering  of  poor  people  in  the  slums  of  a  great 
city.  "  Your  rope  isn't  long  enough  for  the  likes 
of  us,"  shouted  one  of  his  hearers.  Now,  it  is  not 
wisdom  to  think  that  we  have  touched  bottom  because 
our  plummet  has  ceased  going  down.  It  may  only 
mean  that  the  soul  and  life  are  too  deep  for  our  sound- 


42  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

ings.  What  is  described  as  "  New  Theology  "  must 
have  much  of  the  Old  Theology  in  it  to  enrich  and 
complete  it,  if  it  is  to  satisfy  in  any  real  and  abiding 
way  the  spiritual  needs  of  men.  Sin  and  forgiveness, 
reconciliation  and  union  with  God,  must  not  hold  in  it 
a  secondary  place.  Its  preachers  must  have  the  historic 
sense,  and  come  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil.  The 
thought  of  the  immanent  God  which  has  become  so 
real  and  vivid  in  our  time  that  it  seems  to  many  like  a 
new  revelation,  does  not,  wisely  understood,  lessen  our 
faith  in  the  ever -revealing  and  ever -redeeming  God. 
But  it  is  required  of  religious  teachers  who  would  meet 
the  deepest  cravings  of  humanity,  not  only  to  believe  in 
the  Divine  Immanence,  but  to  have  personal  experience 
of  God's  present  help  and  salvation.  St.  Augustine  tells 
us  that  his  chief  reason  for  writing  his  imperishable 
confessions  was  to  praise  God  before  men  for  raising 
him  from  such  depths  of  sin,  "  lest  any  other  might  lie 
down  and  sleep  in  despair  and  say,  '  I  cannot  awake.'  " 
It  is  still  preachers  who  can  tell  men  from  their  own 
experience  of  the  love  and  mercy  and  grace  of  God, 
whom  our  world  most  needs.  Of  all  men,  the 
preacher  must  not  be  weak  in  faith  ;  he  must  be  no 
doubter,  no  cynic,  no  pessimist.  He  must  be  a  great 
believer  in  the  great  things,  an  unconquerable  optimist, 
a  man  of  abounding  hopefulness  ;  for  he  lives  to  inspire 
and  diffuse  hope,  to  make  men  feel  and  believe  that 
they  live  in  a  world,  not  under  God's  wrath  and  curse, 


DE   PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI  43 

but  under  His  love  and  blessing,  and  that  neither  life  nor 
death,  nor  things  present  nor  things  to  come,  will  be  able 
to  separate  them  from  the  Eternal  charity  and  care. 

When  the  saintly  Quaker,  John  Woolman,  lay  on  his 
deathbed,  the  feeling,  he  said,  "  of  the  extent  of  the  sin 
and  misery  of  my  fellow-creatures  separated  me  from 
the  Divine  Harmony,  and  was  more  than  I  could  bear. 
But  in  the  depths  of  my  distress  I  remembered  that 
Thou,  O  Lord,  art  omnipotent,  and  that  I  had  called 
Thee  Father  ;  and  again  I  was  made  quiet  in  Thy  will 
and  looked  for  deliverance  from  Thee  !  "  To  God  we 
must  ever  look  when  there  is  darkness  without  and 
within.  We  must  not  let  the  sorrow  and  sin  of  the 
world  rob  us  of  our  faith  and  hope.  There  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  unchanging  and  persistent  evil  in  the 
world.  For  God  is  never  outside  of  the  world.  He 
is  ever  indwelling  and  at  work  in  His  moral  as  in 
His  physical  creation,  and  present  in  all  shapes  and 
depths  of  evil  as  the  infinite  spirit  of  goodness  work- 
ing for  goodness,  the  everlasting  Father  and  Saviour  of 
men.  "  O  Israel,  hope  in  the  Lord;  for  with  the  Lord 
there  is  mercy,  and  with  Him  plenteous  redemption." 


\^.M^it^U\M   I     Ji/vu/a^  «?c.  ^  y^f^.  [^17 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ? 

"  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  And  they  said,  Believe  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  and  thy  house." — Acts 
xvi.  30. 

The  question,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  is  a 
common  question,  yet  it  is  never  commonplace.  In 
some  shape  it  is  upon  almost  every  lip.  It  is  one  of 
those  great  human  questions  which  men  ask  age  after 
age,  and  ask  as  if  they  had  never  been  asked  before. 
It  is  new  to  every  man  because  it  is  vital  to  every  man. 
Our  deepest  needs  know  neither  to-day  nor  yesterday. 
They  are  always  and  everywhere  the  same. 

It  is  a  question  which  is  full  of  interest  to  every 
serious  man,  and  to  every  man  in  his  serious  moods. 
Our  moral  and  spiritual  needs  are  as  real  and  sometimes 
as  pressing  as  our  physical  necessities.  They  are  not 
always  felt — they  are  the  needs  of  our  deeper  heart  and 
deeper  mind  ;  but  in  our  truer  and  better  moments,  and 
in  all  those  experiences  which  greatly  move  and  search 
us,  we  know  and  confess  them  to  be  real  and  supreme. 

It  is  from  the  depths  of  life,  and  not  from  its  surface, 

44 


WHAT  MUST  1  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     45 

that  the  cry  comes,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? " — 
that  is,  when  it  is  a  genuine  cry  ;  the  cry  not  of 
awakened  self-love  but  of  awakened  godliness  ;  a  cry  for 
deliverance  from  sin,  and  not  simply  a  clamour  to  escape 
from  the  punishment  which  sin  inevitably  brings  in  this 
and  in  all  the  worlds.  The  sense  of  sin  is  a  reality,  a 
genuine  human  experience  which  will  not  be  ignored,  and 
which  no  reasoning  can  reason  away.  Instead  of  being, 
as  we  have  been  told,  "  a  remnant  of  savagery  and  bar- 
barism," sure  to  vanish  with  the  triumph  of  intelligence,  it 
is,  on  the  contrary,  the  sign  of  all  signs  of  an  onward 
moving  being,  of  a  progressive  moral  nature  ;  it  grows 
with  man's  growing  power  of  moral  sympathy  and 
insight,  and  will  never  leave  him  so  long  as  he  is  able 
to  see  himself  better  than  he  is  and  vision  is  beyond 
achievement.  Our  grief  for  sin  is  really  our  grandeur 
in  disguise,  the  inverted  image  of  our  greatness,  the 
shadow  cast  by  aspiration,  the  feeling  awakened  in  one 
who  has  heard  the  call  to  a  more  perfect  life  which  he 
knows  he  can  obey. 

There  may  be  certain  things  in  human  life  which  are 
well  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  an  animal 
nature  slowly  fading  and  dying  out  of  man,  but  with 
every  new  advance  in  knowledge,  with  every  new  and 
larger  perception  of  the  moral  ideal,  with  every  new 
accession  of  spiritual  light,  new  forms  and  opportunities 
of  sin  come  within  the  range  of  vision  and  possibility. 
The  sins  which  our  Lord  said  are  most  deadly  are  not 


46  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

physical,  but  spiritual  in  their  origin  and  quality — the 
perversion  and  corruption  of  the  higher  nature. 

We  may  have  no  theory  compelling  us  to  speak  of 
ourselves  as  totally  depraved  and  with  "  no  health  in 
us,"  for  God,  that  is  good,  is  ever  immanent  in  His 
creation  and  in  His  children,  and  if  we  make  our  bed 
in  hell,  behold  He  is  there  ;  but  we  know  the  burden 
of  sin.  In  our  deeper  moments  and  moods  the  temper 
of  moral  content  is  strange  to  us,  and  sin — the  wilful 
choice  of  evil  instead  of  good,  with  all  the  weakness 
and  degradation  which  follow  from  that  choice — comes 
home  to  us,  as  a  fact,  not  a  fiction ;  a  reality,  not  a 
make-believe.  We  know  in  our  heart  of  hearts  that 
we  have  done  that  which  we  cannot  justify  ;  that  we 
have  not  lived  up  to  our  light  ;  that  we  have  failed  to 
realise  the  good  which  we  were  free  and  able  to  realise 
and  to  which  we  were  drawn  by  a  secret  obligation 
and  reverence  ;  we  know  that  under  the  pressure  of 
voluntary  inclination  we  have  again  and  again  yielded 
ourselves  captive  to  evil.  In  these  revealing  moments, 
we  cover  our  faces  because  we  can  hide  our  transgres- 
sions no  more. 

The  conviction  of  sin,  where  it  is  genuine,  is  due, 
not  to  fear  of  consequences,  but  to  moral  illumination. 
It  is  the  thought  of  our  wise,  not  of  our  foolish  hours ; 
of  our  strong,  not  of  our  weak  moments.  The  terrible 
cry  of  Paul,  "What  I  would  I  do  not :  what  I  hate  I 
do,"  must  be  the  sum  and  expression  of  the  musings 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     47 

of  every  thoughtful  man.  Like  the  French  king,  we 
must  each  know  the  two  men  of  that  great  tragedy  of 
conscience.  There  is  much  of  the  sinner  in  the  saint, 
as  there  is  much  of  the  saint  in  the  sinner,  and  it  is 
only  the  holiest  saint  who  knows  how  near  he  is  to  the 
worst  sinner.  Whoever  is  self-satisfied  is  easily  satis- 
fied. The  better  we  become  the  less  self-complacent 
are  we.  It  is  the  best  men  seeking  the  best  who  are 
most  troubled  by  the  memory  of  past  failure,  and  most 
conscious  of  present  shortcoming.  The  only  man  who 
uttered  no  regrets,  betrayed  no  sense  of  failure,  was 
conscious  of  no  shortcoming,  was  oppressed  by  no 
unfulfilled  ideals  or  purposes,  acknowledged  no  sin, 
was  He  whom  His  disciples  confessed  to  be  "  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 

It  is  one  of  the  supreme  characteristics  of  the 
Christian  revelation  that  it  quickens  and  deepens  in 
man  the  sense  of  sin.  Jesus  Christ  comes  not  to 
judge  and  condemn,  yet  His  Holy  Presence  in  our 
human  life  is  itself  judgment  and  condemnation  ;  at 
once  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  our  humanity.  The 
revelation  of  the  more  perfect  always  convicts  of 
shortcoming  and  failure.  The  law  enters  and  sin 
abounds.  As  we  stand  face  to  face  with  Jesus  Christ, 
and  His  eyes  search  us  through  and  through,  we  are 
touched  as  never  before  with  the  sense  of  sin  ;  the 
greater  light  reveals  the  greater  darkness  ;  our  self- 
delusions  and  self-complacencies  vanish  j  we  remember 


48  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

our  omissions  of  duty  as  well  as  our  positive  transgres- 
sions ;  we  pierce  beneath  our  actions  to  our  motives 
and  affections,  and  that  one  word  of  human  experience 
which  we  miss  in  the  prayers  of  Christ  falls  from  our 
lips — "  I  have  sinned." 

The  reality  of  sin  is  increasingly  felt  as  we  perceive 
and  realise  its  consequences  ;  how  it  weakens  and 
deadens  those  faculties  and  affections  which  make  us 
the  spiritual  children  of  God  ;  how  it  wounds  and 
kills  the  fine  humanities  of  our  nature,  and  darkens 
and  disorders  human  life  and  human  society.  Sin  is 
personal,  but  it  is  more  than  personal  in  its  conse- 
quences. By  the  disobedience  of  one,  many  are  made 
sinners.  By  our  folly  and  weakness  and  wickedness 
every  man  of  us  helps  to  make  the  race  fall  and  to  keep 
it  fallen.  The  mystery  which  men  make  of  the  world's 
moral  condition  comes  back  upon  us  as  the  mystery  of 
individual  unfaithfulness  and  transgression. 

The  sense  of  sin  is  a  painful  burden,  but  is  a  blessed 
burden  after  all  ;  a  sign  not  of  death  but  of  life  ;  not 
of  falling  but  of  rising.  To  be  weak  and  wicked  is 
bad,  but  not  to  know  it  and  feel  it  is  worse — the  worst 
doom  of  a  careless,  sin-loving  heart.  Remorse,  I  often 
say,  is  not  the  deepest  hell  :  the  deepest  hell  is  that  in 
which  there  is  no  remorse — the  painless  hell — where 
the  gnawing  worm  is  dead  and  the  scorching  fires  are 
quenched.  The  final  result  of  the  disregard  of  moral 
law  is  not  suffering — conscious  suffering,  that  is — but 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?    49 

incapacity  to  suffer.  Not  to  any  fixed  or  finished  con- 
dition of  evil  does  suffering  belong,  but  to  the  conflict 
between  good  and  evil,  to  the  struggle  between  life  and 
death.  It  is  the  painless  hell,  I  say,  that  is  the  worst 
hell,  and  there  are  thousands  of  men  and  women  around 
us  who  are,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  in  this  hell  at  this 
moment — men  who  are  bad  and  are  content  to  be  bad  ; 
whose  self-indulgences  and  dishonesties,  hatreds  and 
cruelties,  never  give  them  a  sleepless  night  ;  women 
whose  habitual  indifference  to  all  highest  and  best  things 
never  brings  the  tinge  of  shame  to  the  cheek.  Let  us 
thank  God  if  we  are  not  so  far  gone  in  a  selfish  and 
worldly  life  as  to  be  insensible  to  our  moral  condition  ; 
let  us  thank  God  if  our  sin  is  finding  us  out  in  torment- 
ing memories  that  will  not  let  us  sleep  ;  in  unquench- 
able fires  of  regret  and  shame.  In  such  pain  there  is 
hope  ;  in  such  shame  there  is  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  ;  such  a  sense  of  sin  is  the  beginning  of  all 
redemption  and  all  progress. 

I.  The  work  of  Christian  teaching  never  comes  nearer 
to  its  chief  object  than  when  it  seeks,  as  I  do  now,  to 
answer  the  question  which  every  one  of  us  must  at 
some  time  have  asked  with  real  concern — "  What  must 
I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  And  first  of  all,  let  it  be  clearly 
understood  what  it  means  to  be  saved.  Any  concep- 
tion of  salvation  that  is  based  on  a  partial  or  false  view 
of  life  must  necessarily  lead  to  practical  error,  or  to 
the  loss  of  healthy  practical  influence.     It  is  a  practical 

4 


so  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

question  and  a  pressing  one.     It  has  been  interpreted 
again  and  again  as  merely  a  cry  of  deliverance  from 
imaginary  and  other  world  terrors,  the  expression  of  the 
coward's  trembling  anxiety  to  save  his  own  skin — to 
sneak  out  of  punishment  rather  than  to  back  out  of 
wrongdoing.     But  it  is  infinitely  more  than  this  ;  it  is 
founded    upon    unquestionable   facts  and    tremendous 
realities  of  human  experience.     It  has  also  been  mixed 
up  with  some  strange  errors,  and  with  that  strangest  of 
all  errors,  that  it  is  not  only  from  sin,  but  from  God 
we  require  to  be  saved.     Let  me  ask  you  in  God's  good 
name  to    dismiss    all    such  selfish  anxieties  and  fears. 
No  one  can  harm  man  save  himself.     Outside  of  himself 
there  is  nought  in  the  universe  that  will  destroy  or  hurt 
him.     Himself  right,  then  everything  is  friendly  to  him. 
Himself  wrong,  then  punishment  is  the  kindest  and 
best  thing  for  him.     There  is  no  revenge  in  the  Divine 
order  of  the  universe.     The  justice  of  God  as  well  as 
His  mercy  seeks  our  salvation.     The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  perfect,  converting  the  soul,  and  our  Judge  is  also 
our  Saviour. 

Like  all  the  great  words  of  religion,  the  word  "  salva- 
tion "  has  got  its  true  meaning  much  dimmed  and 
narrowed.  It  needs  to  be  constantly  illuminated  and 
enlarged  by  connecting  it  with  the  Biblical  and  Chris- 
tian idea  of  salvation.  Both  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  it  is  the  symbol  of  a  great  and  infinite  idea. 
The  objection  to  many  definitions  of  it  is  that  they  are 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     51 

altogether  inadequate — that  they  only  express  a  very 
small  part  of  the  meaning  which  the  prophets  and 
apostles  of  religion  saw  in  it.  The  salvation  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  indeed  a  great  salvation — far  greater  than 
most  men  have  ever  thought  or  imagined.  It  meant 
and  it  means  a  large  and  many-sided  experience  ;  the 
highest  quality  and  order  of  human  life,  the  highest 
character  and  blessedness  which  men  individually  and 
collectively  are  capable  of  reaching  and  realising. 

I.  Salvation  is  first  a  certain  deliverance  from  the 
depression  and  dismay  which  spring  from  our  knowledge 
and  fear  of  the  evil  we  have  done  ;  it  is  a  certain  relief 
from  the  shame  which  paralyses  hopeful  endeavour,  and 
from  the  ignorant  and  guilty  dread  which  makes  the 
thought  of  God  a  burden  and  not  an  inspiration. 

The  suffering  of  an  awakened  conscience  is  of  all 
burdens  the  hardest  to  be  borne.  This  was  the 
Nemesis  that  the  ancients  pictured  as  ever  pursuing 
the  ever-flying  and  never-escaping  criminal.  This  was 
the  torment  that  drove  Lady  Macbeth  mad — who,  with 
all  her  ablutions,  could  not  wash  out  the  bloodstains 
from  her  hand. 

And  it  is  the  sorrow  not  only  of  those  who  have 
committed  great  crimes  against  humanity,  but  of  every 
man  who  is  haunted  by  lost  opportunities,  of  every 
man  who  has  fled  from  duties  that  demanded  faithful- 
ness unto  death,  of  every  man  who  has  given  his  soul 
away  in  exchange  for  some  worldly  prize,  of  every  man 


52  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

who  has  not  lived  up  to  his  light,  and  has  not  been 
obedient  to  the  heavenly  vision  when  obedience  was 
inconvenient  and  hard  ;  of  every  man  awakened  to  the 
sense  of  the  irrevocable  past  and  to  the  thought  of 
what  he  might  have  been  and  might  have  done.  We 
are  commonly  told,  1  know,  that  the  conscientious  man 
is  a  happy  man,  contented  and  satisfied  with  himself, 
but  this  theory  is  not  in  accord  with  facts.  It  is 
your  most  conscientious  man  who  is  most  dissatisfied 
with  himself  and  most  keenly  alive  to  shortcoming 
and  failure.  "  Happiness  of  an  approving  conscience  ! " 
exclaims  Carlyle  in  a  well-known  passage  in  Sartor 
Resartus — "  did  not  Paul  of  Tarsus  call  himself  the  chief 
of  sinners  and  Nero  of  Rome,  jocund  in  spirit,  spend 
much  of  his  time  in  fiddling  ^ "  But  the  sense  of  sin 
is  not  healthy  in  its  influence  when  it  fails  to  receive 
any  hopeful  interpretation  ;  when  it  breeds  morbid  and 
despairing  thoughts  of  ourselves  and  God,  of  life  here 
and  hereafter.  It  is  not  good  to  live  in  an  atmosphere 
of  self-reproach,  self-distrust,  and  fear.  Despair  is  fatal 
to  all  high  and  sustained  endeavour.  We  are  saved 
by  hope. 

2.  Salvation  means,  then,  in  the  first  place,  a  certain 
deliverance  from  the  depression  and  fear  of  sin,  it 
means  a  sense  of  the  forgiving  mercy  and  help  of  God, 
it  means  the  victory  of  faith  and  hope  ;  but  all  this  is 
only  clearing  the  ground  for  the  great  salvation  of  Jesus 
Christ.     The   removal    of    tormenting   shame,  of    our 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     53 

ignorant  and  guilty  dread  of  God  and  fate,  is  only  the 
first  step  in  the  way  of  the  Christian  salvation.  There 
is  evil  in  the  heart  and  life,  and  from  its  presence 
and  dominion  we  require  to  be  delivered.  The  cry, 
"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  when  a  true  cry,  is  a 
longing  for  deliverance  from  sin,  and  not,  as  I  have 
said,  a  clamour  to  escape  from  the  punishment  which 
sin  inevitably  brings  in  this  world  and  in  all  the  worlds. 
We  are  not  in  real  contact  with  the  Divine  order  of 
the  world  until  we  feel  that  it  is  not  penalty  here  or 
hereafter  God  wants  to  save  us  from — but  sin.  We 
bear  and  must  bear  the  punishment  of  our  sins.  The 
remission  of  sin  is  not  the  remission  of  punishment. 
We  reap  what  we  sow.  It  is  by  this  severity  of  disci- 
pline God  makes  us  see  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin. 
Justice  and  mercy  are  eternally  one.  Justice  is  benefi- 
cent and  the  retributive  forces  are  redemptive.  The 
cry  to  escape  from  the  natural  penalty  of  sin  is  the  cry, 
not  of  the  higher  but  of  the  lower  nature  ;  the  cry  of  a 
man  who  cares  more  for  his  own  personal  safety  and 
comfort  than  he  cares  for  the  order  and  will  of  God. 
The  man  truly  awakened  and  enlightened  wants  to  be 
delivered  from  the  power  of  evil  affections  and  evil 
habits,  to  be  saved  from  his  infirmities  and  sins,  even 
though  it  be  by  fire  ;  to  be  made  right  with  God, 
right  with  men  who  are  the  children  of  God,  and  right 
with  the  whole  order  of  things  which  is  of  God.  Let 
us  not  be  deceived.     There  is  no  other  way  by  which 


54  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

a  man  can  be  saved  from  sin  except  by  ceasing  to  be 
a  sinner.  Men  not  even  decently  moral  are  often 
heard  rejoicing  in  salvation  on  the  ground  of  certain 
beliefs  or  emotional  experiences  ;  but  they  are  hardly 
in  the  way  of  being  saved — only  inflated  with  a  vain 
and  foolish  confidence.  Let  us  not  even  dare  to  speak 
of  being  saved  if  we  are  still  the  willing  victims  of  bad 
passions  and  tempers,  of  corrupt  desires,  of  inordinate 
affections,  of  mean  prejudices  and  false  judgments. 
Let  us  not  dare  to  speak  of  being  saved  if  we  are  not 
being  saved  from  the  sins  we  are  tempted  to  commit 
daily  and  hourly, 

3.  But  thirdly,  while  it  is  much  to  be  delivered 
from  perverted  and  corrupt  affection  and  to  have  the 
power  of  evil  habit  broken,  yet  much  more  remains  to 
be  done  to  have  the  fulness  of  the  blessing  which  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  calls  "  salvation."  Salvation  is 
not  only  deliverance  from  sin  ;  it  is  growth  in  all  true- 
ness  and  goodness  of  life.  Christian  character  is  not 
an  incident,  a  result,  a  test  of  salvation — it  is  salvation. 
Salvation  is  character.  The  perfection  of  character  and 
the  work  of  salvation  include  the  training  of  every 
power  and  affection  to  the  standard  of  the  perfect  man  ; 
the  rising  up  on  all  sides  of  our  being  and  life  to  Him 
who  is  the  head.  We  speak  glibly  enough  at  times 
about  saving  souls — but  what  is  the  soul  but  the  true 
and  complete  self-hood,  the  living  man  in  his  entirety  ? 
To  save  the  soul  is  to  save  the  man  in  every  faculty  of 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     SS 

his  complex  being  and  in  every  relation  and  province 
of  his  many-sided  life.  The  saved  man  is  the  whole 
man  ;  the  healthy  and  fully-developed  man,  man  at  his 
highest  and  best.  Salvation  is  not  summed  up  in  the 
word  "  culture,"  but  it  includes  all  the  good  things  for 
which  the  word  stands.  It  is  not  a  partiality  or  limita- 
tion, the  saving  of  fractions  of  ourselves  and  fractions 
of  our  life — it  is  identical  with  the  highest  and  widest 
culture,  with  the  freest  and  fullest  growth  of  man  ; 
bidding  us  strive,  and  moving  us  to  strive,  after  all 
things  pure  and  good  and  lovely,  and  enabling  us  to 
attain  them.  The  work  of  salvation  is  meant  to  be 
not  so  much  a  work  by  itself  as  a  work  large  enough 
to  take  in  every  other  work — the  work  of  life.  It 
is  also  a  work  that  is  never  finished.  The  saved  man 
will  ever  be  getting  more  salvation,  adding  virtue  to 
virtue  and  grace  to  grace  ;  going  on  from  strength  to 
strength  and  from  glory  to  glory.  Here,  again,  let 
us  not  be  deceived.  Unless  the  character  through 
all  its  feebleness  and  failure  is  tending  toward  the 
Christian  completeness  it  is  not  in  the  line  of  the 
Christian  salvation.  We  were  made  and  meant  to 
be  men  after  Jesus  Christ's  type — of  the  same  mind 
and  spirit,  character  and  life,  and  to  be  content  with 
no  growth  and  no  attainment  which  fall  short  of 
that  moral  and  spiritual  splendour  —  of  that  divine 
loveliness. 

4.  But,  fourthly,  salvation  is  not  something  wrought 


S6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

in  and  for  ourselves  alone  ;  it  means  a  life  lived  not 
for  self,  but  for  God  and  mankind — it  means  not  only 
character  but  service. 

It  is  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  Himself  we  have 
His  large  conception  of  salvation.  The  name  He 
gives  it  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  To  be  saved  is  to  be 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Now  a  kingdom  is  a  society. 
About  any  merely  private  salvation  that  ended  in  one's 
self  Jesus  Christ  had  very  little  to  say  but  this  :  He 
that  saveth  himself  shall  lose  himself.  He  always 
put  God — God's  will,  God's  work,  and  the  service  of 
God  in  mankind — where  much  religion  that  calls  itself 
by  His  name  puts  self — self-interest,  personal  safety, 
comfort,  peace,  and  final  bliss.  To  be  self-centred  is 
in  Christ's  judgment  to  be  in  a  state  of  condemnation, 
not  of  salvation — to  be  dead,  not  alive. 

A  man  who  only  wishes  to  save  himself  has  not 
learned  the  alphabet  of  Christianity — has  hardly  taken 
the  first  step  in  the  Christian  life.  Any  amount  of  care 
for  one's  self  rightly  and  nobly  directed,  any  amount 
of  self-discipline  and  self-culture,  is  praiseworthy,  but 
not  if  it  is  for  a  merely  private  and  selfish  end. 
Religious  selfishness  is  just  as  bad  as  any  other  kind 
of  selfishness.  The  selfishness  which  would  find  happi- 
ness after  death  just  as  it  eagerly  seeks  for  happiness 
before  death,  which  seeks  heaven  just  as  it  grasps 
earth,  is  but  the  old  spirit  of  darkness  transformed 
into  the  outward  semblance  of  an  angel  of  light.     "  Is 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     57 

selfishness  for  time  a  sin — stretched  out  into  eternity 
celestial  prudence  ?  " 

St.  Bernard,  describing  the  various  degrees  of  Chris- 
tian perfection,  says  that  the  highest  is  reached  when 
a  man  cares  for  himself  for  the  sake  of  God — for  the 
sake  of  being  better  able  to  do  the  will  and  to  work  the 
work  of  God.  Salvation,  it  is  true,  means  the  forgive- 
ness of  personal  sins,  deliverance  from  personal  weak- 
ness, defection,  and  corruption,  the  growth  and  culture 
of  the  personal  life  ;  but  all  this  not  primarily  and 
supremely  for  the  sake  of  our  private  well-being, 
comfort,  and  blessedness  here  and  hereafter — but  for 
the  sake  of  God  and  mankind.  Let  us  lay  it  well  to 
heart  that  man's  chief  end  is  not  to  save  himself,  but  to 
glorify  God  ;  to  save  himself  that  he  may  glorify  God, 
live  for  ideal  and  Divine  ends,  enter*  into  fellowship 
with  the  Eternal  power  and  purpose,  and  give  himself, 
as  Jesus  Christ  did,  for  the  world's  redemption. 

Vain,  indeed,  O  man,  is  it  to  boast  that  you  are  saved 
while  your  brethren  are  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  and  in  the  attainment  of  good  ;  vain  to 
boast  that  you  are  saved  while  your  business  life, 
professional  life,  social  and  public  life  are  full  of  all 
manner  of  injustice  and  wrong,  of  unbrotherliness  and 
ungodliness.  Saved  ! — while  you  live  what  on  the 
whole  is  a  self-seeking  life.  Saved  ! — while  society  is 
unsaved.  We  are  not  solitary  units — our  life  is  bound 
up  with  that  of  our  fellows.     The  salvation  of  all  is 


58  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

necessary  to  the  salvation  of  each  ;  and  the  salvation  of 
each  to  the  salvation  of  all.  This  private  isolated  idea 
of  salvation  is  selfish,  unspiritual,  inhumane,  unchristian. 
The  salvation  of  Christ  is  essentially  a  social  salvation. 
The  less  we  think  of  ourselves  in  a  separate  way,  as 
isolated  from  our  fellows  ;  the  more  we  give  ourselves 
to  helping  our  brethren,  to  the  good  of  our  kind,  to 
the  large  interests  of  the  world,  the  more  do  we  hasten 
that  salvation  in  which  all  are  sharers,  the  more  do  we 
truly  save  ourselves — find,  that  is,  through  the  Christian 
self-surrender,  through  the  Christian  enthusiasm  for 
truth  and  justice  and  right  and  good,  for  God  and  all 
God's  children — that  which  we  seem  to  cast  away  :  a 
deeper,  richer,  more  powerful,  more  commanding 
personal  life, — the  free  full  life  of  the  sons  of  God. 

II.  We  come  now  to  consider  how  believing  in  Jesus 
Christ  enables  a  man  to  realise  the  ideal  of  salvation  we 
have  been  considering. 

A  gospel  to  be  a  gospel  must  be  a  real  and  complete 
answer  to  the  cry  which  in  some  form  or  other  arises 
from  the  deep  heart  of  every  man  when  once  he  becomes 
truly  awake  and  alive  to  his  most  serious  needs.  If 
we  have  no  answer  to  this  cry  in  all  the  stages  of  its 
development,  then,  however  wise  and  beautiful  our 
word  may  be,  and  however  pleasing  to  the  righteous 
who  need  no  repentance,  we  have  assuredly  no  gospel 
for  a  sinful,  dissatisfied,  aspiring,  growing  humanity. 

Can  Jesus  Christ  save  us,  the  men  and  women  of 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     59 

this  twentieth  century  ?  What  is  it  in  Him  or  pro- 
ceeding from  Him  that  saves  ?  How  does  He  save  ? 
These  are  questions  that  perpetually  recur  with  fresh 
interest  and  which  require  to  be  answered  anew  for  every 
generation.  Now,  whatever  error  or  superstition  has 
clouded  the  image  of  Christ  in  the  minds  of  men,  one 
conception  has  always  in  some  form  been  held — the 
conception  of  Christ  as  Saviour.  Obscured,  disguised, 
perverted  as  it  has  been,  we  find  it  through  all  the  ages 
of  Christian  history.  St.  Paul  called  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  "  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation."  Wherever 
it  was  truly  believed  it  lifted  men  into  salvation,  lifted 
them  from  darkness  to  light,  from  death  to  life,  from 
light  to  more  light,  and  from  life  to  more  life.  It  both 
quickened  and  pacified  the  conscience,  changed  character, 
and  brought  men  to  fulfil  the  highest  ends  of  human 
existence.  Jesus  Christ  saved  that  old  world  into  which 
He  came  nineteen  hundred  years  ago — saved  it  when 
it  was  perishing  through  the  fury  of  its  passions  and 
the  weariness  of  its  lusts,  saved  it  by  the  new  faith,  the 
new  hope,  the  new  affection,  the  new  spirit  which  He 
quickened  and  inspired.  To  the  influences  which  He 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  higher  life  of  mankind,  to  the 
saving  influence  which  flowed  from  His  person  and 
teaching.  His  life  and  cross,  may  be  traced  almost  every 
point  of  contrast  between  ancient  and  modern  history. 

And  from  the  first  days  until  now  men  who  have 
come  under  the  influence  of  Jesus    Christ   and    been 


6o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

moved  and  mastered,  inspired  and  led  by  Him,  have 
been  saved  with  a  great  salvation.  But  what  must  we 
do  to  be  saved  ?  Appeals  to  what  has  been  already 
done  are  never  quite  satisfactory  as  an  answer  to  present 
needs.  To-day  we  need  a  Saviour.  To-day,  deep 
in  our  hearts,  there  is  the  sense  that  of  all  evils  sin  is 
the  worst,  that  it  is,  indeed,  the  only  real  evil,  and  that 
salvation  from  sin  is  the  only  issue  that  can  make  life 
a  noble  progress  and  a  victory.  Everywhere  in  our 
human  world,  and  under  all  varieties  of  condition, 
culture  and  character,  there  is  one  great  longing  and 
aspiration,  though  it  may  find  utterance  in  a  thousand 
different  forms  :  Who  will  deliver  me  from  the  body 
of  this  death  ?  Who  will  deliver  me  from  the  oppres- 
sion of  shameful  and  bitter  memories  ^  Who  will 
deliver  me  from  the  dominion  of  selfish  passions  and 
inclinations,  of  wrong  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling, 
willing  and  acting  .''  Who  will  quicken  and  inspire  my 
life  with  those  new  and  nobler  affections  which  alone 
can  save  life  from  the  tragedy  of  moral  degradation  and 
decay  .''  Who  will  restore  me  to  God,  to  myself,  to  my 
fellows,  and  bring  me  to  that  perfection  and  peace  of 
life  which  come  from  harmony  with  the  Divine  will  } 
I  thank  God,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

Jesus  Christ  has  done  all  this  for  men  and  can  still 
do  it.  Through  Him  flowed,  and  flows,  the  saving 
power  of  God,  which,  drawing  the  heart  from  self  to 
God  and  fellow-man,  giveth  us  the  victory  over  sin. 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED?     6i 

He  is  still  mighty  to  save — mighty  to  quicken  and 
inspire  the  personal  soul  and  to  redeem  society.  But 
He  saves  not  by  one  method  alone,  but  by  what- 
ever He  was  and  is,  did  and  does,  mediately  and 
immediately  ;  saves  by  all  the  influences  of  His  life 
and  death,  of  His  truth  and  spirit  ;  saves  not  by  any 
arbitrary  and  magical  efficacy,  but  precisely  to  that 
extent  in  which  He  is  known  and  understood,  loved 
and  obeyed  ;  saves  by  his  revelation  of  the  Eternal  love 
and  sympathy  and  sacrifice  and  by  bringing  us  into 
direct  communion  with  God,  as  children  with  father  ; 
saves  by  implanting  in  the  soil  of  our  hearts  new  trusts 
and  new  hopes  ;  saves  by  inspiring  true  thoughts,  true 
feelings,  and  those  divine  affections  and  motives  which 
are  the  sources  of  all  human  excellence. 

The  answer  which  St.  Paul  gave  to  the  question, 
"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  is  an  all-sufficient 
answer,  if  it  be  read,  not  as  a  single  and  unconnected 
sentence,  but  in  the  light  of  the  commentary  upon  it 
which  the  apostle  gives  in  his  letters.  In  nothing  have 
men  done  greater  injustice  to  the  Scriptures  than  by 
quoting  isolated  words  and  texts.  If  we  cannot  with 
open  minds  and  hearts  study  the  Christian  teaching  as 
a  whole,  particular  texts  are  almost  always  sure  to 
confuse  and  mislead  us. 

"  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  is  not  a  little 
word  denoting  a  little  thing.  It  is  a  word  of  wide  and 
profound  significance.     It  is  the  symbol  of  an  infinite 


62  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

idea — an  idea  of  which  the  whole  New  Testament  may- 
be said  to  be  the  expansion  and  interpretation.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  Hfe,  and  to  the  soul  spending 
itself  on  questions  as  to  personal  safety  and  peace,  it 
means  something  very  simple  ;  but  its  fulfilment  covers 
more  than  we  think  or  can  think,  more  than  the  most 
faithful  can  realise  in  a  long  lifetime. 

I  know  what  it  may  be  made  to  mean  to  a  human 
soul   weak    and    ignorant — full    of    selfish    fears    and 
anxieties    about    God    and    a    hereafter  ;    to    a    poor 
bewildered    creature    without    any    fine    desires    and 
aspirations,  trembling  between  life  and  death.     In  the 
hour  of  the  final  conflict  and  passion  the  most  foolish 
and    feeble    and    sinful    man    can    so  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  revelation  and  assurance  of  the  mercy  of 
God  as  to  be  saved  from  tormenting  fears  and  be  able 
to    die    in    peace.     To    believe    in    Christ  is  indeed  a 
saving  faith  when  it  helps  one  to  believe  in  the  forgiving 
love  of  God,  to  realise  the  Eternal  mercy  in  the  hour 
and  power  of  doubt  and  despair.     The  religion  of  fear, 
though  it  is  fast  losing  its  hold  on  minds  truly  thought- 
ful and  Christian,  yet  represents  a  stage  of    religious 
growth — a  stage  which  must  be  passed  through  by  all 
those  who  are  being  brought  up,  as  many  of  us  were 
brought    up,  under  forms  of  belief  which  make  men 
especially  anxious    about  themselves,  as  if    their    own 
private  safety  and  blessedness,  and  not  doing  the  will 
of  God,  were  the  chief  end    of  existence.     It  is  well, 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     63 

therefore,  from  time  to  time  to  meet  its  questions,  for 
the  highest  life  is  not  possible  until  men  are  delivered 
from  selfish  fears  and  anxieties.  It  is  also  one  of  the 
divinest  offices  of  true  religion  to  deliver  men  and 
women  from  this  pious  selfishness,  to  lead  them  away 
from  thinking  and  brooding  over  themselves  and  their 
destiny  to  such  a  sense  of  the  Eternal  goodness  and 
mercy  as  shall  drive  these  questionings  and  cares  right 
out  of  the  mind.  No  longer  anxious  about  their  own 
safety,  because  they  have  learned  from  Jesus  Christ 
that  God  is  their  Father  and  Saviour  in  this  and  in  all 
the  worlds,  and  that  they  may  trust  Him  for  life  and 
death  and  the  long  hereafter,  they  will  be  anxious  only 
to  do  His  will  and  to  be  active  sharers  in  that  Divine 
and  unending  sacrifice  by  which  the  world  is  being 
redeemed  from  its  evil. 

Then,  further,  there  are  in  the  New  Testament  a 
few  great  sayings  which  speak  of  believing  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  if  it  were  the  loftiest  elevation  to  which  a 
human  soul  could  rise,  the  nearest  approach  to  God  and 
perfection.  "  This  is  the  work  of  God  " — that  is,  the 
divinest  thing  you  can  do — "  that  ye  believe  on  Him 
whom  God  hath  sent "  :  these  words  are  true,  not  in 
some  mystical  theological  sense,  but  as  a  simple  matter 
of  practical  experience.  It  is  the  meaning  of  several 
sayings  of  Jesus  to  be  found  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
that  there  is  a  certain  believing  in  the  Son  which  is 
impossible  without  a  previous  believing  in  the  Father — 


64  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

that  is,  without  a  certain  previous  development  and  atti- 
tude of  the  soul  toward  God  in  expectation,  insight  and 
obedience — a  believing  which  corresponds  to  a  high 
order  of  spiritual  needs  and  aspirations.  The  religion 
of  Christ  is  not  the  root  but  the  flower  of  religion  ;  it 
comes  not  first  but  last  :  it  is  the  Divine  fulfilment  and 
realisation  of  the  growing  needs  and  aspirations  of 
humanity.  "  Ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  Me." 
"  Every  man  that  hath  heard  and  learned  of  My  Father 
Cometh  unto  Me."  "  Unto  you  who  believe  Christ  is 
precious."  "  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  of  God," 
says  St.  John,  "hath  eternal  life" — that  is,  the  highest 
and  divinest  quality  of  life — a  believing  plainly  that 
is  identical  with  the  reception  of  the  filial  spirit  of 
Christ,  with  loving  what  He  loved,  with  living  His 
life,  with  following  in  the  steps  of  His  obedience  and 
service. 

And  to  men  seeking  that  high  and  divine  good  we 
call  "  salvation,"  our  Lord  did  not  always  say  in  so 
many  words,  "  Believe  on  Me."  He  sometimes  said, 
"  Repent."  Turn  your  whole  mind  and  heart  to  God. 
He  sometimes  said,  "  Forgive,  that  you  may  be  for- 
given." He  sometimes  said,  "  Obey,"  "  Do  the  will  "  ; 
He  sometimes  said,  "  Follow  Me "  ;  He  sometimes 
said,  "  Endure  unto  the  end  "  ;  He  sometimes  said, 
"  Love  Me  and  My'  Father."  But,  righdy  understood, 
the  repentance,  the  change  of  mind,  the  trust,  the 
obedience,  the  striving,  the  endurance,  the  forgiveness, 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     65 

the  love,  the  self-sacrifice,  for  which  He  called,  are  all 
forms  and  phases  of  believing  on  Him. 

St.  Paul,  also,  who  exhorted  the  frightened  gaoler 
to  "  believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  in  order  to  be 
saved,  told  the  Philippians  to  work  out  their  own 
salvation  ;  the  Romans  to  "  walk  after  the  Spirit,  not 
after  the  flesh  "  ;  the  Galatians  to  "  live  by  the  faith  of 
the  Son  of  God,"  as  he  himself  was  striving  to  do  ;  and 
the  Colossians  "  to  fill  up  that  which  is  lacking  of  the 
sufferings  of  Christ "  ;  and  all  these  great  exhortations 
do  but  fill  out  and  interpret  the  meaning,  reveal  the 
solemn  infinite  range  and  depth  of  this  primary  one, 
"  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved." 

It  would  also,  I  think,  be  found  that  the  interroga- 
tion of  Christian  experience  would  be  most  favourable 
to  a  large  and  comprehensive  interpretation  of  our  text. 
The  ways  by  which  men  are  brought  into  filial  intimacy 
with  God,  into  the  fellowship  of  sons,  which  is  the 
distinctively  Christian  experience,  are  as  many  and 
various  as  are  the  ways  of  the  Divine  approach  to  men. 
The  way  of  Christ  is  inclusive  of  all  true  ways  to  God. 
As  I  read  the  lives  of  "  the  saved,"  of  all  churches  and 
ages,  and  study  the  expressions  given  by  different  minds 
to  their  spiritual  experience,  their  record  of  the  way  in 
which  they  found  peace,  deliverance  from  sin,  victory 
over  weakness  and  the  world,  the  life  and  blessedness 
of  the  faithful  children  of  God,  I  am  reminded  of  the 

5 


66  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

seer's  vision  of  the  New  Jerusalem  which  describes  the 
pilgrims  to  the  city  of  God  as  entering  through  twelve 
gates,  on  the  north  and  the  south,  the  east  and  the  west 
sides  of  the  city. 

I.  To  the  soul  seeking  salvation  from  the  shame 
and  fear  and  guilt  of  sin  we  still  say,  as  St.  Paul  said, 
"  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved." 

It    is  the  meaning  of    the  Christian  revelation  that 
God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  Himself, 
that,  being  infinite  in  love  and  sympathy,  He  bears  on 
His    heart  the  sin  and  sorrow  of    mankind,  and  that 
Christ  reveals  Him  bearing  them — reveals  the  Eternal 
passion    and    sacrifice.     How  few  believe    in    God    in 
Christ  with   a  real  believing  !     The  average  religious 
man  is  more  pagan  than  Christian  in  his  conception  of 
God  and  His  ways.     He  says  he  believes  in  the  deity 
of  Christ,  but  does  he  not  miss  altogether  and  fail  to 
realise  the  vital  spiritual  truth  of  the  doctrine  when  he 
thinks  of  the  invisible  God  as  having  dispositions  and 
intentions  towards  any  of  His  creatures  and  children, 
many  or  few,  that  are  not  Christ-like  ;  when  he  thinks 
that  God  can  be  less  or  other  than  that  which  the  Son 
reveals  Him  to  be  ;  less  than  infinite  in  His  compassion 
and  helpfulness,  other  than  the  everlasting  Father  and 
Saviour  of  men  ?     "  The  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord  "  is  the  very  heart  of  the  Christian  Gospel. 
It  is  true  that  the  presence  and  spirit  of  Christ  in  human 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     67 

life  quickens  and  deepens  the  sense  of  sin,  but  it  is 
also  true  that  in  the  circle  of  Christ's  influence  and 
fellowship  the  liveliest  and  deepest  sense  of  sin  can 
never  lead  to  despair.  The  man  who  truly  believes 
in  Jesus  Christ  believes  in  redeeming  mercy  and  grace  ; 
believes  that  what  Jesus  was  to  sinful  men  and  women 
in  Judea  and  Galilee  long  ago,  the  Father  of  Christ  is 
now  and  for  ever  to  trembling  human  hearts  in  their 
guilty  fear  and  shame.  To  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  is 
indeed  a  saving  faith  when  it  helps  us  to  believe  in  God, 
to  believe  in  the  eternal  goodness  and  grace,  and  thus 
to  be  delivered  from  the  fear  which  weakens  and  the 
despair  which  kills. 

The  familiar  statement,  "  You  have  nothing  to  do, 
only  to  believe,"  is  a  confusing  and  misleading  one, 
but  it  has  this  amount  of  truth  underlying  it,  that  we 
have  nothing  to  do  to  move  and  win  the  pity  and  love 
and  help  of  God.  We  may  begin  our  Christian  life 
with  the  assurance  that  God  does  love  us  ;  that  His 
attitude  toward  us  now  and  for  ever,  in  this  age  and 
world  and  in  all  the  ages  and  worlds  to  come,  is  the 
forgiving,  merciful,  helpful,  redeeming  attitude.  The 
certainty  of  the  free,  all-embracing,  unchanging,  unend- 
ing love  of  God  ought  to  be  one  of  our  permanent 
possessions,  the  possession  of  every  one  who  has  been 
born  into  Christendom  and  has  breathed  from  child- 
hood the  atmosphere  of  the  Christian  faith  and  spirit  ; 
a    possession   which     no    sense    of    unworthiness,    no 


68  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

conscious  want  of  goodness,  no  fall,  and  no  failure 
ought  to  be  able  to  take  away  from  us.  It  is  true  that 
believing  in  the  Divine  love  and  mercy  and  sympathy 
does  not  undo  what  has  been  done,  supply  what  has 
been  omitted,  bring  back  the  yesterdays,  restore  the 
wasted  substance,  and  obliterate  all  the  issues  of  past 
transgressions  ;  but  it  does  save  us  from  weakening 
regrets  and  fears  ;  it  takes  the  anguish  and  dread  out 
of  the  soul ;  it  helps  us  to  feel  that  we  are  recoverable  ; 
it  enables  us  to  enter  on  the  struggle  to  rise  above  the 
evil  past  and  the  evil  self  with  confidence  and  courage 
— with  the  assurance  that  victory  lies  within  our  reach 
if  at  all  costs  we  seek  to  win  it. 

2.  To  the  soul  seeking  to  be  saved  from  the  domin- 
ion of  evil  passions  and  habits  still  we  say,  as  St.  Paul 
said,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved."  A  corrupt  affection  is  best  mastered  and 
displaced  by  the  growth  of  a  new  and  noble  affection. 
We  often,  I  am  persuaded,  fail  to  understand  the  great 
Christian  things  by  viewing  them  too  far  apart  from 
familiar  everyday  experience.  We  know  that  whatever 
good  thing  wins  and  rules  the  heart  may,  according 
to  its  measure,  be  a  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  A 
distinguished  man  once  said  that  in  early  manhood 
he  found  deliverance  from  a  guilty  passion  through 
a  devoted  attachment  to  a  branch  of  science.  The 
saving  potency  of  a  true  and  pure  love  for  a  good  man 
or  woman  has  never  been  without  its  witnesses.     Let  a 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     69 

man's  life  be  taken  possession  of  by  a  great  affection, 
and  what  will  it  not  do  for  him  ? — cleanse  his  unclean 
heart,  calm  and  chasten  his  hot  and  eager  desires,  bind 
him  over  to  rectitude  and  faithfulness,  and  ever  urge 
and  keep  him  to  his  best.  And  it  is  just  in  this  way- 
Jesus  Christ  has  been  a  Saviour  to  many  in  all  lands 
and  ages.  The  things  named  are  not,  of  course,  on 
the  same  level  as  the  Christian  attachment  and  loyalty, 
but  they  illustrate  the  same  law — the  redeeming  energy 
of  love — salvation  through  the  quickening  of  a  noble 
and  commanding  affection,  love  in  the  soul  washing 
sin  from  the  soul.  Though  the  smallest  pebble  thrown 
into  the  air  falls  to  the  earth  by  precisely  the  same 
law  which  draws  Jupiter  through  the  infinite  spaces 
of  the  sky,  yet  that  is  not  to  put  the  pebble  on  the 
same  level  as  the  planet.  What  is  meant  is  that 
what  wins  the  heart  from  false,  selfish,  bad  ways  is  a 
saving  power — saves  men  from  sin  and  reconciles  them 
to  goodness — that  is,  to  God.  The  great  word  of 
Christianity  is  Love.  Its  gateway  out  of  the  hell  of 
evil  passion  is  the  power  of  the  passion  for  Jesus 
Christ.  To  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  with  a  real  believ- 
ing is  to  be  filled  with  a  passion  for  goodness  ;  and 
it  is  this  passion,  and  not  any  theory  or  doctrine  that 
may  be  associated  with  it,  that  subdues  the  selfish 
passions,  strengthens  the  will,  purifies  the  life  and 
redeems  from  all  evil. 

3.  To  the  soul  seeking  to  be  saved  in  the  sense  of 


70  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

realising  the  ideal  perfection  which  a  man  may  and  can 
realise,  we  still  say,  as  St.  Paul  said,  "  Believe  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  revelation,  not  only  of  true  God,  but  of 
true  man — the  realisation  and  revelation  of  the  Divine 
ideal  of  our  human  righteousness  and  the  manifestation 
of  its  possibility  to  our  doubting  souls.  To  believe  in 
Him  is  to  believe  in  ourselves.  He  is  ourselves  in 
prophecy  and  anticipation.  To  believe  in  Him  is  to 
see  in  His  life  a  page  only  too  brief  of  authentic  human 
history,  a  real  part  of  man's,  life  upon  this  earth,  the 
type  and  promise  of  the  perfection  possible  to  every  son 
of  man.  His  righteousness  is  indeed  our  righteousness, 
our  human  righteousness,  which  we  ought  to  seek  and 
strive  after,  love  and  live.  It  cannot  be  imputed,  but 
it  may  be  imparted  and  won  by  our  sympathy  with  it 
and  our  obedience.  Character  cannot  be  transferred 
any  more  than  physical  vigour  or  mental  culture,  but  it 
may  be  acquired.  Our  personal  loyalty  is  the  cardinal 
and  inexorable  condition  of  attainment.  Believing  on 
Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  substitute  for  personal  obedience 
— it  is  motive  and  inspiration  to  personal  obedience. 
It  is  vital  with  quickening  power  to  make  us  obey  as 
He  obeyed,  to  be  loyal  to  His  spirit  and  law  of  life. 
Thus  Christ  is  made  unto  us  righteousness.  And  in  our 
Christian  loyalty  also  are  all  the  elements  required  for 
the  development  of  the  most  complete  and  finished  type 
of    human  excellence — for   the  free  and  full  develop- 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED?     71 

ment  of  the  complete  circle  of  our  human  powers,  for 
the  attainment  of  whatsoever  things  are  true,  venerable, 
just,  pure,  lovely,  and  gracious.  Jesus  Christ's  Christi- 
anity has  an  essential  affinity  for  what  is  best  in  life 
and  character,  and  the  men  it  creates  are  not  fanatical, 
narrow,  one-sided  men — but  symmetrical,  many-sided, 
whole  men. 

4.  To  the  man  seeking  to  be  saved  from  that  which 
will  not  let  him  be  a  true  member  of  the  human  family 
and  a  good  brother  to  all  his  brethren,  we  say,  as  St. 
Paul  said,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved,  and  thy  house."  To  believe  in  Christ 
with  a  real  believing  is  to  be  saved  from  selfishness, 
to  be  delivered  from  our  ungodly  and  unbrotherly 
jealousies,  hatreds,  rivalries,  and  competitions  ;  it  is  to 
be  brought  out  of  the  circle  of  selfish  aims  and  interests 
and  strivings  into  sympathy  with  God's  wide  world, 
and  into  communion  with  all  mankind.  The  affections 
which  Jesus  Christ  inspires  are  all  opposed  to  the 
affections  which  isolate  and  divide.  His  spirit  is  a 
social  spirit,  drawing  men  together  in  mutual  love  and 
helpfulness,  making  each  feel,  "  Who  is  weak  or 
wronged  and  I  am  not  weak  and  wronged  ? "  through 
individual  energy  and  influence  producing  beneficent 
effects  on  the  families  and  generations  of  men  ;  making 
possible  and  actual  a  heredity  of  Christian  goodness, 
the  salvation  of  human  life  on  this  earth  from  the  evils 
which  darken  and  oppress  it,  and  that  triumph  of  the 


72  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Christian  idea  and  order  of  human  society  which  is  the 
true  second  coming  of  Christ. 

Thus  believing  in  Jesus  Christ  continuously  exercised 
is  indeed  a  saving  faith,  having  its  final  issue  and  result 
in  a  great  salvation,  a  salvation  that  comprehends  the 
two  lives  and  the  two  worlds  in  all  their  length  and 
breadth.  Through  the  power  of  such  a  real  believing 
we  must  become  like  Him  in  whom  we  believe  ; 
His  trusts  our  trusts  ;  His  purposes  our  purposes  ; 
His  ideals  our  ideals  ;  His  spirit  our  spirit ;  His  char- 
acter our  character  ;  His  work  our  work  ;  His  devotion 
to  God  and  mankind  the  pattern  and  inspiration  of  our 
service  and  sacrifice. 

Let  us  now  ask  ourselves.  Are  we  being  saved  .'' — 
are  we  seeking  and  realising  the  great  salvation  of 
Jesus  Christ,  beating  down  evil  beneath  our  feet, 
rising  out  of  weakness  and  selfishness  and  all  un- 
loveliness  of  life  toward  the  perfect  man,  giving  our- 
selves more  and  more  to  the  large  and  best  interests  of 
our  fellows  and  the  world,  more  and  more  filled  with 
Christ's  passion  for  the  will  of  God  and  the  service  of 
mankind,  with  the  spirit  of  His  obedience  and  sacrifice 
and  the  charity  of  His  cross  ?  What  avails  our 
knowledge  of  salvation  and  the  way  of  salvation  if  we 
are  still  the  slaves  of  evil  desires  and  habits  ;  if  we 
are  still  allowing  a  spirit  which  is  the  deadly  foe  of 
the  Christian  spirit  to  move  and  rule  us  ;  if  we  are 
living  self-centred,  self-indulgent  lives,  and  the  Divine 


WHAT  MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED  ?     73 

Passion  of  the  Cross  for  the  redemption  of  the  world 
has  never  been  kindled  in  our  hearts  ?  It  is  not  by 
our  theological  opinions,  but  by  our  practical  fidelity, 
Christ  measures  our  attachment  to  Him.  What  does 
He  care  for  a  believing  that  bears  no  fruit  unto 
godliness  and  brotherliness  of  life  ?  It  is  our  moral 
and  spiritual  sympathy  with  Christ  that  saves,  that 
changes  us  into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory, 
and  sends  us  out  to  carry  on  His  saving  work  among 
our  fellows. 

And  how  shall  we  escape  if  we  neglect  so  great  a 
salvation  .''  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  we  must  suffer 
the  penalty  of  our  neglect.  Thank  God  there  is  no 
escape — no  escape  from  the  Divine  predestination  to 
salvation  ;  but  by  our  persistent  neglect  we  are 
strengthening  our  baser  nature  and  life,  and  making  the 
work  of  our  salvation  harder  and  harder — dooming 
ourselves  to  be  saved  so  as  by  fire.  Let  us  be  faithful, 
and  thus  avoid  that  only  real  and  tragical  failure  in  life 
which  is  to  be  ourselves  failures.  Let  us  be  faithful — 
not  content  to  be  scarcely  saved,  but  seeking  and 
striving  after  the  Christian  completeness.  Let  us  be 
faithful,  so  that  when  the  evening  shadows  fall  upon 
this  troubled  life  we  may  each  be  able  to  say,  "  Lord, 
now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 


\K^iUL^  w^L  O^^u^-  ^^  --^^  •    if^^ 


THE   SYMBOLISM    OF   THE   CROSS 

"Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified." — i  Cor.  ii.  2. 

In  almost  every  picture-gallery  in  Europe  we  see  one 
subject  represented  in  many  diiFerent  forms — the 
Crucifixion  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  old  painters  seem 
never  to  have  tired  of  it.  And  in  many  of  their 
pictures  we  find  standing  or  kneeling  near  the  Cross, 
either  as  spectators  or  worshippers,  men  and  women  of 
later  times.  Among  the  Roman  soldiers,  the  citizens 
of  Jerusalem,  the  Jewish  peasants,  and  the  relatives  and 
friends  of  the  Crucified,  we  observe  bishops  and  monks, 
saints  and  martyrs  of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  even 
occasionally  the  background  of  the  picture  is  not  that 
of  the  Holy  City,  but  of  Rome  or  Florence,  Siena  or 
Assisi.  It  is  the  way  which  these  old  teachers  of 
religious  truth  had  of  telling  their  fellows  that  the 
Cross  is  for  all  lands  and  times,  and  not  only  for  the 
people  who  lived  beneath  Syrian  skies  in  the  first 
century  of  our  era. 

In  a  million  churches  all  over  Western  Christendom 

74 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       75 

men  and  women  gather  every  year  in  crowds  to  re-enact 
in  memory  the  closing  scenes  of  the  life  of  our  Lord. 
All  the  resources  of  dramatic  symbolism,  of  music,  and 
speech,  and  silence  are  used  to  impress  the  lessons 
which  the  Cross  can  teach.  The  good  that  is  done  by 
this  annual  commemoration  need  not,  I  think,  be 
questioned.  It  is  not  wasted  time,  Mr.  Ruskin  once 
said,  to  submit  ourselves  to  any  influence  which  may 
bring  upon  us  any  noble  feeling.  It  is  to  be  regretted, 
rather,  that  these  memorial  days  of  Christ  should  not 
be  more  widely  and  intelligently  observed,  and  that 
by  so  many  they  should  be  allowed  to  pass  entirely 
unnoticed,  save  for  holiday  and  amusement. 

It  is  not  as  ancient  history,  not  as  the  record  of 
vanished  struggles  and  of  sorrows  long  since  comforted, 
we  ought  to  read  the  story  of  the  Passion  and  death  of 
Jesus  Christ  ;  but  as  a  representation  of  things  which 
in  all  their  fundamental  aspects  are  for  ever  true — a 
revelation  of  life,  of  man,  and  of  God,  which  is  the 
same  to-day  as  yesterday.  Not  merely  as  fragmentary 
reminiscences  of  a  few  dim  years  passed  long  ago  in 
Galilee  and  Judea  on  which  we  may  exercise  our  critical 
ingenuity,  ought  the  old,  old  story  to  appeal  to  you  and 
to  me,  but  as  suggestion  and  symbol  of  universal  Tact 
and  truth,  able  to  stir  within  our  souls  at  each  eventful 
epoch  of  our  days  a  new  power  of  life.  The  temptation 
in  the  wilderness,  the  vigil  in  Gethsemane,  the  betrayal, 
the  denial,  the  public  judgment  and  rejection,  the  failure 


76  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  the  triumph  of  the  Cross — all  these  events  ought 
to  have  for  us  an  immortal  significance,  and  not  only, 
or  even  chiefly,  because  they  concern  the  Jesus  of  history, 
but  because  they  interpret  and  express  with  infinite  depth 
and  power  experiences  which  on  their  moral  or  spiritual 
side  belong  to  universal  humanity.  They  have  their 
ideal  as  well  as  their  historical  value.  That,  indeed, 
which  makes  the  life  of  Jesus  so  inexhaustible  in  its 
freshness,  so  new  and  wonderful  and  helpful  from  age 
to  age,  is  just  the  power  which  it  possesses  of  illuminat- 
ing our  own  lives  in  all  their  deeper  passages.  He  is 
ourselves  in  advance,  our  Representative.  The  scenes 
of  His  life — the  closing  scenes,  in  particular — only  gain 
their  highest  meaning  when  they  are  translated  into 
moral  experiences,  and  we  are  able  to  say  with  St. 
Paul,  whose  source  of  inspiration  was  Christ  after  the 
Spirit  :  "  I  suffer,  I  die,  I  am  buried,  I  rise,  I  reign 
with  Him." 

In  "  The  Secret,"  a  fine  but  unfinished  poem  which 
seeks  to  represent  Christianity  as  the  flower  and  crown 
of  all  religion,  Goethe  draws  a  picture  of  man  in  his 
pilgrimage  through  the  world  in  search  of  the  highest 
good,  coming  at  last  to  the  Cross  : 

"  He  sees,  betokening  hope  and  consolation 
To  all  mankind,  the  Sign  upraisdd  high  : 
He  sees  the  Cross,  then  lowers  his  veiled  eyes  ; 
He  feels  how  great  salvation  thence  proceedeth  ; 
The  faith  of  half  a  world  glows  in  his  heart  once  more." 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       77 

In  Christendom  there  is  now,  as  there  has  always 
been,  no  spiritual  attraction  like  the  Cross.  Not  a  few 
here  and  everywhere,  who  are  proof  against  many  other 
religious  attractions,  are  drawn  by  this  one.  It  touches 
them,  some  in  one  way,  others  in  another  way,  each 
man  according  to  his  temperament,  his  character,  his 
culture,  his  experience  ;  but  it  is  only  the  man  destitute 
of  spiritual  life,  if  such  a  one  can  be  found,  who  can 
stand  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Cross  wholly  unmoved. 
We  may  not  make  much  of  it  as  a  visible  and  material 
sign  in  our  churches  and  homes,  by  our  waysides  and 
on  our  mountain  heights.  Some  things  which  our 
fathers  thought  and  said  about  it  we  may  not  be  able 
to  think  and  say,  but  in  discarding  this  or  that  use  of 
it,  or  this  or  that  interpretation  of  it,  we  are  not  of 
those  who  wish  to  make  it  of  none  effect.  It  is  still 
our  symbol.  The  secret  of  its  power  is  not  bound  up 
with  any  ecclesiastical  exposition  of  it.  The  men  who 
find  in  ecclesiastical  theory  and  myth  little  to  attract  and 
much  to  repel,  but  who  still  glory  in  the  Cross  and  find 
the  law  and  inspiration  of  their  life  in  the  faith  and 
spirit  of  Him  who  consecrated  it  by  His  death,  are  in 
our  day  a  multitude  which  no  man  can  number.  We 
must  not  be  of  that  small  company  of  unpoised,  un- 
balanced minds,  who  are  for  ever  tempted  to  belittle 
what  has  hitherto  been  belauded  in  ways  unreal  and 
extravagant.  Let  not  the  exaggerations  of  men,  their 
dogmatism  or  their  sentimentalism,  cheat  us  for    one 


78  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

moment  into  thinking  that  we  do  not  revere  the 
Cross,  do  not  love  it,  and  are  not  loyal  to  it.  Let  us  do 
ourselves  no  such  harm  !  Let  us  not  impoverish  our 
spiritual  life  and  the  spiritual  life  of  our  churches  by 
slighting  this  source  of  inspiration.  The  supreme 
office  or  service  of  the  Cross  is  to  quicken  and  nourish 
in  the  soul  certain  great  emotions,  affections  and 
sympathies  ;  and  if  in  the  solitude  and  silence  of  our 
inner  life,  and  in  our  associated  life  as  congregations 
of  Christ's  flock,  it  is  drawing  and  keeping  us  nearer 
to  man  and  to  God,  then  assuredly  we  are  not  among 
those  who  are  making  it  of  none  effect. 

Of  all  symbols  the  Cross  is  not  the  property  of  a 
sect,  the  monopoly  of  a  school,  the  badge  of  a  party. 
It  belongs  to  all  as  the  loveliness  of  the  world,  as  our 
great  human  affections  and  needs,  as  our  sorrow  and 
sin,  belong  to  all.  It  belongs  to  all  who  feel  and  rejoice 
to  feel  the  healing  touch  of  Christ,  to  all  to  whom  He 
is  as  dear  as  He  was  to  the  disciples,  who,  though  they 
did  not  understand  Him  yet  followed  Him,  as  He  was 
to  the  women  who  ministered  to  Him  in  Galilee,  and 
as  He  was  to  the  outcasts  who  fell  in  shame  at  His  feet. 
It  belongs  to  all  who  get  from  it  comfort,  rebuke,  in- 
spiration, some  help  to  holy  living  and  dying.  Alas  ! 
that  men  should  cover  it  with  their  infirmities  even 
when  gathering  around  it  seeking  salvation.  Alas  ! 
that  at  its  very  foot  they  should  nurse  bad  tempers 
and  confirm  prejudices,  and  from  behind  it  shoot  forth 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       79 

poisoned  arrows — even  false  and  bitter  words  against 
all  who  do  not  think  of  it  as  they  do.  Alas  !  that  it 
should  ever  have  been  used  to  keep  alive  in  the  world 
the  same  intolerance,  the  same  meanness  and  wicked- 
ness, which  crucified  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  not  differ- 
ences of  conception  and  opinion,  but  self-indulgence 
and  worldliness  of  life,  which  made  St.  Paul  denounce 
many  of  the  religionists  of  his  day  as  enemies  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  Not  differing  thought  and  theory, 
but  subjection  to  the  senses,  slavery  to  appetite,  bondage 
to  worldly  custom,  moral  unfaithfulness,  spiritual  in- 
difference, these  are  the  things  which  in  the  present, 
as  in  the  past,  make  of  men  and  women  the  enemies 
of  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

The  Cross  of  Christ  does  not  live  merely  as  ancient 
history,  nor  as  the  centre  of  an  ecclesiastical  drama,  or 
of  a  theological  system.  It  has  a  message — a  real  and 
living  message — for  us  upon  whom  the  ends  of  an  age 
have  come,  as  much  as  it  had  for  the  men  who  lived  in 
the  first  Christian  days.  It  only  requires  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  schools  and  sects,  and  to 
be  brought  back  again  into  the  midst  of  our  human  life, 
near  to  our  human  passion  and  need,  for  men  to  feel 
its  wondrous  charm  and  power. 


8o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

I.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  the  Sorrow  of 
THE  World 

We  may  have  wondered  at  times  why  one  Son  of 
man  crowned  with  thorns  and  stretched  out  upon  a 
Cross  should  have  made  such  a  deep  impression  on 
the  heart  of  mankind  :  why,  in  a  world  where  there  are 
so  many  tears  shed  and  so  much  blood,  where  thorns 
pierce  so  many  foreheads,  and  the  cross  of  anguish  is 
so  universal,  that  year  after  year  for  well-nigh  nineteen 
centuries  men  and  women  have  gathered  around  this 
one  sufferer  and  wept  over  Him,  as  if  the  crown  of 
thorns  and  the  Cross  were  alone  His.  In  a  paper  pub- 
lished in  the  interests  of  Labour,  I  read  not  long  ago 
an  article  in  which  the  writer  said  :  "  There  was  a  time 
when  in  Lent  I  wept  for  the  Crucified  on  Calvary  ; 
now  my  Eternal  Lent  is  for  the  miseries  of  man,  and 
the  suffering  and  crucifixion  of  all  the  best  helpers  and 
heroes  of  the  world."  There  is  much  in  the  suggestion 
of  that  sentence  which  must  appeal  to  us  all.  Again 
and  again,  in  moments  of  deep  feeling  and  clear  vision, 
it  must  have  appeared  to  us  to  be  almost  like  an  in- 
justice to  the  suffering  human  millions  in  every  country 
and  age,  a  slight  on  the  immeasurable  miseries  and 
martyrdoms  of  humanity,  to  dwell  so  much  on  what 
happened  to  one  Son  of  man  long  ago.  Why  just 
Jesus  ?  Why  the  Crucified  of  Calvary  alone  .''  Why 
should  His  Passion  and  Cross  be  so  exalted  and  mag- 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       8i 

nified  ?  It  must  surely  be  because  this  Son  of  man 
comes  to  us  in  His  suffering  as  the  Representative  of 
all  the  sons  of  men,  because  His  sorrow  has  a  universal 
significance,  because  His  Cross  is  the  centre  and  symbol, 
the  illumination  and  consecration,  of  all  our  human 
crosses.  Our  Good  Friday  and  Easter  Meditations 
would  indeed  be  vain  thoughts  were  they  occupied 
merely  with  remote  things.  It  would  be  a  waste  of 
precious  feeling  to  muse  and  weep  over  the  ancient 
story  of  Jesus'  woe  and  to  linger  before  His  Cross — 
unless  that  Cross  has  a  universal  significance,  and  unless 
by  the  contemplation  of  that  sorrow  we  are  made  more 
alive  to  the  pathos  of  life,  taught  and  stirred  to  bear 
more  bravely  our  own  sorrows,  and  to  cultivate  a  finer 
and  wider  sympathy  with  our  afflicted  human  kind. 
We  may  be  sure  that  He  who  identified  Himself  so 
closely  and  completely  with  suffering  humanity  in  His 
native  Galilee,  and  who  said  on  His  way  to  Calvary, 
"  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  me,  but  weep 
for  yourselves  and  your  children,"  would  not  have  us 
spend  one  thought  or  tear  upon  what  He  once  endured, 
were  we  not  brought  by  that  meditation  and  discipline 
not  only  nearer  to  Himself,  but  nearer  to  men  to-day 
in  all  their  toils  and  tragedies  and  needs. 

To  purify  the  emotions,  it  was  said  long  ago,  is  the 
office  of  tragedy  :  to  lift  the  spectator  to  such  a  high 
level  that  one  will  be  ashamed  to  go  home  from  the 
contemplation  of  such  struggle  and  suffering  to  make 


82  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

much  of  his  own  little  ailments  and  troubles.  The 
tragedy  of  the  Saviour's  life  to  which  Christendom, 
especially  on  Good  Friday,  directs  its  thought,  is  surely 
being  used  for  its  divinest  work  when  it  is  used  to 
arouse  and  deliver  us  from  our  selfishness,  and  to 
deepen  our  sympathy  with  the  wrongs  and  sorrows  and 
needs  of  living  men.  It  is  as  the  Representative  of 
mankind  Jesus  hangs  there  upon  J  the  Cross.  The 
pathos  of  the  sight  is  in  its  appeal  to  that  which  corre- 
sponds to  it  in  universal  human  experience,  in  your  life 
and  mine,  and  in  the  life  of  the  race. 

In  some  shape  the  Cross  enters  into  every  human 
life.  Do  what  we  may  it  cannot  be  escaped.  Sorrow 
and  pain  pass  no  man  by  ;  and  no  reasoning  can  argue 
them  out  of  existence,  or  reduce  our  fight  with  disease 
and  suffering  to  a  phantom  battle — an  illusion  of  "  mortal 
mind."  Living  in  a  world  where  the  blows  of  mis- 
fortune are  constantly  falling  ;  where  the  ravages  of 
suffering  are  nowhere  long  absent  ;  where  every  joy  is 
every  moment  exposed  to  blight  ;  where  development 
yields  new  pain  ;  where  increasing  knowledge,  increas- 
ing refinement,  increasing  goodness  and  sympathy  mean 
increasing  sorrow,  and  men  and  women  suffer,  not  for 
being  worse,  but  for  being  better  than  their  fellows,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  the  Cross  appeals  to  human  hearts 
everywhere  as  the  symbol  of  human  life,  and  holds  us 
under  the  spell  of  a  solemn  fascination.  Rejoice  as  we 
may,  and  as  we  ought  to  rejoice,  in  all  that  brightens 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       83 

and  sweetens  life,  yet  the  fellowship  of  suffering  is 
wider  and  deeper  than  the  fellowship  of  happiness.  A 
German  poet  has  said  that  the  image  of  humanity, 
broken  in  all  its  limbs,  transfixed  in  hands  and  feet 
and  sorrowful  unto  death,  has  become  distasteful  to 
men  ;  but  that  can  only  be  true  of  men  in  their  light, 
careless,  self-indulgent  hours.  In  all  our  deeper  ex- 
periences our  feet  tread  the  path  that  leads  to  Calvary, 
and  we  seek  the  Man  of  Sorrows  acquainted  with  grief. 
Christianity  has  been  called  the  worship  of  sorrow, 
/and  there  is  much  truth  in  the  saying.  It  blesses 
those  that  mourn,  and  counts  the  sensitive  and  wounded 
heart  of  sympathy  to  be  the  divinest  thing  in  man.  It 
has  not  diminished  the  suffering  in  the  world,  but  it 
has  given  it  a  new  and  nobler  meaning,  made  it  appear 
to  be  no  longer  God's  wrath  and  curse,  but  God's  love 
and  blessing.  It  has  altered  its  expression,  changing  it 
from  selfish  suffering  into  the  suflFering  which  comes 
from  aspiration  and  pity  and  growing  sensibility  to  the 
wants  and  woes  of  the  world.  Our  communion  with 
Jesus  Christ,  if  it  is  a  real  thing  and  not  a  pretence, 
means  that  our  natures  with  all  their  susceptibilities 
and  capacities  and  affections,  and  our  lives  in  aU  their 
relations  and  interests  and  cares,  have  been  tuned  to  a 
higher  note  and  brought  into  unison  with  a  diviner 
idea,  and  therefore  to  the  willing  endurance  of  many  a 
burden  and  battle  and  many  a  pain  and  pang  unknown 
before.     We  cannot  indeed  imagine  a  Christian  life  at 


84  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

all  without  this  underlying  sensitiveness  to  the  sorrow 
of  the  world. 

Let  us  lay  well  to  heart,  then,  this  first  lesson  of  the 
Cross  ;  its  revelation  of  the  reality  and  power  of  suffer- 
ing, of  sorrow  bravely  accepted,  borne,  and  so  borne 
that  it  becomes  a  means  and  moment  of  development 
— a  Divine  education.  Though  He  were  a  Son  yet 
learned  He  obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered. 
He  did  not  suffer  that  we  might  not  suffer,  but  rather 
that  we  might  learn  how  to  suffer.  And  did  we  but 
take  to  the  inevitable  ills  of  our  days  as  He  took  to 
His,  meet  and  bear  them  in  His  spirit,  then  would 
they  lose  their  bitterness  and  sting  ;  evil  would  be  the 
minister  of  good,  our  struggles  would  be  a  discipline 
of  strength,  our  pain  would  quicken  and  refine  our 
pity,  our  suffering  be  a  bond  of  sympathy  with  suffer- 
ing everywhere,  our  sorrow  a  divine  joy  in  the  making, 
our  cross  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation. 

II.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  the  Sin 
OF  the  World 

We  are  accustomed  to  hear  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus 
Christ  spoken  of  as  the  act  of  the  human  race,  and  as 
such  in  a  very  true  sense  it  may  be  regarded.  A  mind 
prone  to  dwell  on  the  mere  accident  and  letter  of 
things  may  say,  "  I  had  no  part  nor  lot  in  it  ;  nor  in 
any  circumstances  could  I  have  shared  in  it,  or  con- 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       85 

sented  to  it."  That  may  be  quite  true  ;  yet  we  have 
that  in  us  which  did  it  ;  not  only  that  in  us  which 
admires  and  loves  the  character  of  the  Crucified,  or 
certain  features  of  it,  but  that  also  which  when  left 
to  itself  takes  sides  against  Christ,  against  the  things 
for  which  He  stood  and  for  which  He  stands. 
Goethe  once  said,  "  I  have  never  heard  of  any  crime 
which  I  might  not  have  committed."  The  crucifixion 
was  the  work  of  men,  and  we  are  men.  In  the  little 
world  of  the  human  heart,  your  heart  and  mine,  what 
contradictions  we  find,  what  capabilities  for  uncom- 
mitted sins,  the  very  seed  and  substance  of  the  evil 
which  crucified  the  Son  of  God. 

In  thinking  from  time  to  time  of  the  great  world- 
tragedy  of  the  Divine  death,  we  must  not  think  of  it 
as  far  away  and  strange — not  as  happening  only  in  the 
Palestine  of  the  first  century — but  as  an  actual  horror 
in  the  England  of  to-day.  The  tragedy  of  the  betrayal, 
the  denial,  the  desertion,  the  rejection,  we  see  constantly 
acted  over  and  over  again.  In  reading  of  Judas,  and 
Peter,  and  Pilate,  the  Jewish  priests  and  the  Jewish 
mob,  we  are  reading  of  ourselves.  The  dispositions 
and  passions,  the  motives  and  interests  which  moved 
them  and  determined  their  conduct,  have  more  or  less  a 
hold  of  us  all,  and  in  all  the  critical  moments  of  life  they 
are  tempting  us  to  follow  their  way  and  take  their  side. 
Our  Lents,  our  Holy  Weeks,  our  Easters,  would  indeed 
be  times  of  solemn  blessing  did  they  but  open  our  eyes 


86  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

to  the  present  reality  of  what  seems  to  have  only  an 
historical  significance — to  the  continual  betrayal,  denial, 
desertion,  rejection,  crucifixion  of  the  Son  of  God  ;  did 
they  but  strip  the  Passion  and  death  of  Christ  of  their 
antiquarian  and  merely  theological  aspects,  and  make 
us  realise  that  so  long  as  men  and  women  have  weak, 
selfish,  worldly,  corrupt  hearts,  the  Cross  and  Passion 
cannot  be  confined  to  one  land  or  century. 

We  shrink  back  from  Judas  with  abhorrence — but 
let  us  not  put  away  from  ourselves  the  thought  that 
we  may  be  guilty  of  a  like  treachery.  A  divided 
allegiance  is  itself  a  treachery.  Does  not  the  love  of 
gain,  or  the  love  of  place,  or  the  love  of  comfort,  often 
induce  men  here  and  now  to  betray  truth,  to  betray 
love  .''  We  do  not,  as  Ruskin  once  said,  disbelieve  our 
Christ — but  we  still  sell  Him.  How  we  blame  Peter 
for  denying  the  best  Friend  a  man  ever  had — how  it 
fills  us  with  a  feeling  of  half-anger,  half-pity,  to  see  him 
turn  coward  and  liar.  And  yet  the  denial  of  Christ  is 
a  very  common  form  of  sin.  To  deny  what  we  know 
to  be  the  highest,  to  live  and  act  in  another  way  in 
profession,  and  trade,  and  society,  in  Church  and 
State,  than  the  way  which  we  know  to  be  the  best  way, 
is  to  deny  the  real  Christ. 

We  talk  cynically  of  the  Jewish  mob  crying  one  day 
"  Hosanna  !  "  and  the  next  day  "  Crucify  !  "  but  how 
often  do  we  see  the  professed  followers  of  Jesus 
Christ  guilty  of  the  same  inconstancy  ? — as  if  mere  lip- 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       87 

worship,  idle  holiday  adorations,  and  the  scattering  of 
dead  leaves  and  branches  gathered  from  our  theological 
gardens  could  take  the  place  of  that  deeper  and  more 
practical  loyalty  for  which  our  honest  Lord  and 
Master  alone  cares — the  loyalty  of  the  life  to  His 
Father's  will  and  work. 

We  condemn  Pilate,  hindered  from  doing  what  was 
right  by  a  cowardly  and  criminal  fear  of  jeopardising 
his  own  interests,  and  yet  is  not  his  conduct  in  essence 
just  what  people  are  guilty  of  every  day  ?  Now,  and 
for  ever,  the  deadly  record  stands,  repeated  in  thousands 
of  churches,  "  Crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate  "  ;  but 
have  we  not  that  within  us  all  which  can  do  what 
Pilate  did — sacrifice  the  highest  and  divinest  things  in 
order  to  please  Caesar,  to  advance  our  prospects,  or  to 
keep  our  place  in  an  exclusive  society  or  a  worldly 
church  ? 

We  wonder  that  the  moral  and  religious  people  of 
Jerusalem  did  not  lift  up  their  voices  against  the  cruci- 
fixion, and  yet  every  day  in  every  town  and  village  of 
the  land  the  Son  of  God  is  being  crucified  afresh — 
crucified  by  the  selfishness  which  prefers  private  in- 
terest or  domestic  comfort  to  witnessing  a  good  and 
brave  confession  for  oppressed  ideas,  oppressed  causes, 
oppressed  men. 

Certain  philosophers  of  Greece  were  accustomed  to 
say  that  if  virtue  appeared  on  the  earth  clothed  in  her 
own    native    loveliness,  all  men  would  fall  down  and 


88  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

worship  her.  It  is  one  thing,  however,  to  love  virtue 
in  dreams  and  visions  of  the  mind,  in  poetry  and  fiction, 
another  thing  to  love  her  when  she  appears  in  our 
streets  and  market-places,  in  our  synagogues  and 
temples — rebuking  our  insincerities  and  falsehoods. 
We  may  admire  and  worship  the  virtue  of  dream  and 
theory  and  yet  cry  out,  "  away,  crucify  !  "  to  the  virtue  of 
fact — to  truth  and  goodness  in  the  actual  world  of  men. 
The  Cross  may  then  be  used  to-day  as  yesterday  to 
produce  conviction  of  sin  ;  to  find  out  where  we  are  in 
relation  to  those  evil  principles  and  passions  which  cruci- 
fied Jesus  Christ.  What  was  done  by  Judas  and  Peter, 
by  Herod  and  Pilate,  by  the  priests  and  rulers  and  the 
people  of  Jerusalem  on  that  first  Good  Friday,  ought  to 
start  the  question  in  the  minds  of  each  one  of  us,  "  Lord, 
is  it  I  } "  God  forbid  there  should  come  to  us  the 
terrible  charge,  "  Thou  art  the  man  !  "  thou  art  a  Judas, 
a  Peter,  a  Pilate,  a  betrayer,  a  denier,  a  crucifier  of  the 
Son  of  God.  No  ;  this  must  never  be.  And  yet  we 
know  full  well  that  it  is  possible  to  be  charmed  by  the 
poetry,  the  music,  the  sentiment  of  religion,  to  be  deeply 
interested  in  speculative  theories  of  the  person  and  death 
of  Christ,  even  to  feel  the  profound  pathos  of  the  Cross, 
and  yet  to  be  in  spirit  and  life  the  enemies  of  the  Cruci- 
fied. Let  us  ever  bring  our  emotions  and  moods  to  a 
practical  test.  Let  us  ever  seek  to  nourish  in  ourselves 
and  in  others  that  love  of  the  law  and  spirit  and  character 
of  Christ,  and  of  the  things  which  were  dearer  to  Him 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       89 

than  life,  which  sends  a  man  out  into  the  world  to  be 
faithful  unto  death,  to  follow  the  True,  even  though  it 
be  to  his  Calvary. 

III.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  Perfect  Obedience 

In  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  we  see  absolute  self- 
consecration  to  God  in  life  and  in  death  ;  the  loftiest 
manifestation  of  the  power  of  man  to  give  himself  to 
God   which   the  world  has   ever    seen.     It  embodies, 
it  is  true,  no  new  principle,  no    principle    which  was 
not    clearly   illustrated    in    the    years    that   led    up    to 
Calvary  ;  rather  is  it  the  fulfilment  and  crown  of  the 
whole  movement  of  His  life  —  of  the    one    principle, 
the  one  law,  the  one  purpose,  the  one  great  devotion 
which  dominated  His  being  and  doing,  all  His  rejoicing 
and  suffering,  all  His   living  and  dying.     It  was  the 
glory  of  Jesus  to  obey  ;  apart  from  His  Father,  He  had 
no  desires,  no  purposes,  no  interests  ;    in  the  Father 
only  did  He  live.     This  absolute  dedication  of  Himself 
to  God — this  absolute  identification  of  Himself  with  the 
will  of  God — a  power  no  doubt  which  He  gradually 
won  and  possessed  in  the  silent  years  which  lie  behind 
His  public  career — gives  us  the  key  to  the  understanding 
of  His  influence  and  His  place  in  history.     Whatever 
prophecies  there  may  have  been  of  the  Divine  Sonship  of 
humanity  in  the  experience  of  men,  it  came  forth  into 
clear  and  complete  consciousness  for  the  first  time  in 


90  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Him  who  said,  "  I  do  always  the  things  that  please 
God."  It  is  this  perfect  realisation  of  filial  union  with 
God  that  is  the  central  fact  of  our  religion.  The 
divinity  of  Jesus  is  the  divinity  of  Sonhood.  It  is  the 
revelation  of  the  Father  in  the  Son.  And  the  Cross 
is  the  proof  and  sign  of  His  perfect  obedience  to  His 
Father's  will — obedience  even  unto  death.  His  life 
was  not  taken  from  Him.  In  one  wonderful  saying 
— the  strongest  words  surely  which  ever  fell  from 
human  lips — He  tells  us  that  He  laid  His  life  down  of 
Himself,  that  He  had  power  to  control  its  events  and 
experiences,  and  was  not  the  victim  but  the  master  of 
fate.  He  will  not  precipitate,  but  He  will  not  avoid 
His  destiny.  "  Master,"  said  Peter,  "  that  be  far  from 
Thee  "  ;  but  if  Jesus  had  saved  Himself — saved  Himself 
by  concessions  to  popular  feeling  and  prejudice,  and  by 
avoiding  the  collisions  which  His  devotion  to  the  will 
of  God  made  inevitable — He  would  not  be  the  Christ 
we  love  to  remember.  From  much  reading  of  His 
story  and  meditating  on  His  spirit,  we  have  that  idea 
of  Him  that  it  disturbs  our  sense  of  His  dignity  to 
suppose  even  for  a  moment  that  He  could  have  yielded 
a  little,  compromised  a  little,  and  when  His  hour  was 
come  could  have  run  away  from  his  enemies  or  have 
hidden  Himself.  "  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  come 
\  down  from  the  cross"  ;  but  we  feel  that  it  is  just 
because  He  is  the  Son  of  God  that  He  cannot  come 
down  ;  it  is  His  filial  faithfulness  which  led  Him  there 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       91 

and  which  keeps  Him  there.  If  for  nothing  else  but 
for  its  example  of  moveless  fidelity,  of  obedience  unto 
death,  we  need  to  place  ourselves  again  and  again  under 
the  inspiring  influence  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  —  an 
inspiration  which  nineteen  centuries  have  not  exhausted. 
In  its  light  we  see  at  once  our  defects  and  failures,  our 
powers  and  possibilities — that  which  both  shames  and 
stimulates  the  work  of  our  high  calling — a  glory  of 
obedience  and  faithfulness  which  can  be  realised  within 
the  conditions  of  our  common  humanity.  It  is  not 
easy  to  put  all  selfish  and  worldly  temptations  under 
our  feet,  to  take  and  to  keep  high  ground  ;  to  say  the 
true  word  and  to  do  the  true  thing  when  it  is  terribly 
hard  to  do  it  ;  when  obedience  and  faithfulness  mean 
loss  and  suflfering — a  daily  crucifying  of  the  flesh  with 
its  affections  and  lusts  ;  but  in  every  tempted  moment 
we  see  Jesus — the  type,  the  promise,  the  prophecy  of 
that  which  we  shall  yet  be,  if  we  faint  not. 

IV.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  Redemption 
THROUGH  Sacrifice 

In  the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ  we  see  the  revelation 
and  symbol  of  sacrifice  as  the  law  of  redemption  and 
progress — as  the  way  of  love  and  redemption  always 
and  everywhere.  This  part  of  its  message  to  men  has 
been  and  still  is  much  misunderstood  and  misrepre- 
sented, but  the  abuse  of  a  great  truth  is  no  reason  for 


92  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

slighting  that  truth  ;  rather  is  it  a  reason  all  the  more 
commanding  for  lifting  that  truth  to  grounds  which 
are  far  above  abuse  and  also  far  above  the  changing 
explanations  of  the  shifting  centuries  of  thought.  The 
lifelong  sacrifice  of  Jesus  to  the  will  and  work  of  God 
and  to  the  good  of  mankind,  which  culminated  in 
His  death,  is  both  the  type  and  the  tide-mark  of  the 
perpetual  and  universal  sacrifice  through  which  the 
world  and  men  rise  ever  upward  to  purer  and  more 
perfect  life. 

It  seems  at  times  as  though  we  failed  to  understand 
the  highest  things  by  seeking  to  understand  them  too 
far  apart  from  our  ordinary  human  experience.  The 
Cross,  as  the  revelation  and  symbol  of  redemption 
through  sacrifice,  needs  to  be  brought  back  to  our 
common  life.  So  far  as  the  principle  is  concerned,  it  is 
right  to  apply,  and  we  do  instinctively  apply,  all  the 
New  Testament  phraseology  of  redemption  to  parents 
sacrificing  themselves  for  the  good  of  their  children,  to 
patriots  suffering  and  dying  for  the  sacred  causes  of 
justice  and  freedom,  to  the  vast  army  of  labourers  who 
procure  for  us  our  necessities  and  luxuries  at  the  cost 
of  their  nobler  growth  and  comfort  ;  and  when  we  do 
so  all  caricatures  of  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Cross  and  all 
parodies  of  the  Christian  redemption  fall  away,  and  we 
see  that  Jesus  in  His  living  and  dying  was  fulfilling  the 
law  to  which  we  owe  all  our  best  blessings,  that  the 
great  fact  of  historical  religion  is  the  interpretation  and 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       93 

transfiguration  of  the  inmost  fact  of  life.  Without 
shedding  of  blood  —  blood  of  body,  blood  of  brain, 
blood  of  heart — there  has  been  no  remission  of  sins,  no 
redemption  from  evil  conditions,  no  progress  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  state  of  society.  Figuratively,  if  not 
literally,  men  have  been  crucified,  their  hands  torn, 
their  hearts  pierced  through  with  many  sorrows,  in 
the  interest  of  every  onward  step  and  movement  of 
mankind.  It  is  by  the  way  of  the  Cross  light  comes, 
freedom  comes,  growth  comes,  now  as  always.  A 
modern  writer  in  a  volume  of  weird  sketches  tells  the 
parable  of  an  artist  who  painted  a  beautiful  picture. 
/  There  was  a  wonderful  glow  upon  it,  which  won  thc^^' 
i  admiration  of  all  his  compeers,  but  which  none  could 
imitate.  They  were  eager  to  find  out  where  he  got  his 
colours.  They  sought  rare  and  rich  pigments  in  far- 
^oflF  lands  ;  but  when  these  touched  the  canvas  their 
/richness  faded  and  died.  So  the  secret  of  the  great 
/  artist  remained  undiscovered.  But  one  day  they  found 
him  dead  beside  his  picture,  and  when  they  came  to 
strip  him  for  his  shroud  they  found  a  wound  beneath  his 
heart.  It  dawned  upon  them  that  he  had  painted  his 
picture  with  his  heart's  blood.  Yes  !  The  work  which 
really  helps  the  world — work  of  statesman  and  philan- 
thropist— work  of  poet  and  painter  and  doctor — work 
of  teacher  and  preacher — is  work  into  which  men  put 
their  life,  their  heart's  blood.  It  is  this  power  to  give 
without  counting  the  cost  to  one's  self,  this  power  of 


94  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

suffering  and  sacrifice,  which  is  the  secret  of  all  redeem- 
ing work.     Putting  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself 
is  what  every  truly  Christian  man  here  and  everywhere 
is  doing.    The  law  of  sacrifice,  which  is  wrought  into  the 
constitution  of  the  world,  which  was  the  law  of  Christ's 
whole  life,  and  which  was  uplifted  and  glorified  upon 
His  Cross,  is  the  law  that  is  laid  upon  every  one  of  us. 
It  is  not  enough  that  Christ  offered  Himself  upon 
the  Cross  of  the  world's  salvation  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  ;  that  sacrifice  has  to  be  prolonged  and  repeated  in 
the  lives  of  His  disciples  if  the  will  of  God  is  ever  to 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.     It  can  never  cease 
to  be  offered  until  the  world  is  redeemed  from  its  evil 
and  reconciled  to  the  Divine  order  of  our  human  life — 
the  true  atonement. 
f.     In  the  sacristy  of  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  in 
.  Paris  there  is  a  memorial  window  to  an  archbishop  who 
was  killed  in  the  discharge  of  his  sacred  duties  amid 
the  tumult  of  one  of  those  revolutions  of  which  Paris 
unhappily  has  witnessed  so  many.     Beneath  the  window 
^    the  words  are  inscribed,  "  The  Good  Shepherd  giveth 
his  life  for  the  sheep."     The  application  of  the  text  is 
a  most  legitimate  and  right  worthy  one.       The  ideal 
of  the  Good  Shepherd  is  the  ideal  of  all  true  and  noble 
j    leadership  among  men  ;  and  obedience  to  its  heavenly 
1    vision  is  the  sacrifice  which  God  exacts  as  the  price  of 
\  all  high  and  helpful  service  and  influence.     How  does 
your  work  and  mine  look  when  judged  by  this  test — 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       95 

the  Good  Shepherd  giveth  His  life  for  the  sheep,  giveth 
His  life  daily,  hourly,  year  in  and  year  out,  puts  all  that 
He  is  and  has  into  His  work,  and  without  reserve  and 
without  calculation  spends  Himself  in  it  ?  Can  we, 
dare  we,  say  with  St.  Paul,  "  I  count  not  my  own  life 
dear  to  myself,"  "  I  die  daily,"  "  I  am  crucified  with 
Christ "  ?  The  Cross  is  the  symbol  of  the  life  Jesus 
lived,  and  it  must  be  the  symbol  of  the  life  we  are 
striving  to  live.  Our  work  must  have  in  it  that  same 
quality  which  makes  the  Cross  divine.  We  must  not 
preach  self-sacrifice  and  practise  self-indulgence.  The 
fellowship  of  the  Crucified  is  the  fellowship  of  sacrifice, 
and  the  Church  of  Christ  the  sacred  order  of  the  Cross. 
Good  is  it  from  time  to  time  to  be  reminded  of  this, 
good  to  listen  to  the  message  of  the  Cross,  good  to 
place  ourselves  at  the  side  of  Jesus  Christ  and  Him 
crucified,  and  to  hear  Him  saying  to  us — Brothers  ! 
Sisters  !  let  us  redeem  the  world  together  ;  together 
let  us  bear  its  burdens  ;  together  let  us  put  away  its  sin 
by  the  sacrifice  of  ourselves. 

V.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  the  Victory 
OF  Failure 

It  is  with  truth  Pascal  says  that  Jesus  Christ  "  took 
the  way  of  perishing  according  to  human  calculations." 
The  Cross  is  the  revelation  and  symbol  of  victory,  but 
of  victory  in  failure  and    because    of    failure.     There 


96  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

never  was  such  an  apparent  failure  as  the  Crucifixion. 
Every  form  of  evil  seemed  to  have  won  a  triumph  on 
that  first  Good  Friday.  But  things  are  not  always 
what  they  appear  to  be.  It  was  the  saying  of  a  high- 
minded  man,  who  had  striven  in  vain  against  an  over- 
whelming majority  in  a  clerical  assembly,  "  When  ye  say 
all  is  over,  then  will  be  the  time  when  all  will  begin." 
The  Cross  was  not  the  end  but  the  beginning — the 
beginning  of  victory — an  endless  victory  to  the  cause 
of  goodness  in  the  world.  Whatever  else  had  failed, 
the  loyalty  of  Jesus  to  the  work  of  His  life  had  not 
failed.  The  outward  defeat  was  the  proof  of  the 
moral  victory.  Had  He  been  less  faithful  He  would 
have  escaped  the  Cross.  There  are  successes  which  are 
sadder  than  any  failures,  and  failures  that  are  more 
glorious  than  any  successes.  It  was  by  the  way  of  the 
Cross  Jesus  went  up  to  power  and  influence  and  glory 
— to  the  throne  of  human  reverence  and  love.  And 
somehow  He  knew  and  felt  that  He  was  to  win  by 
losing,  to  conquer  by  failing,  to  live  by  dying.  And 
the  history  of  all  that  is  best  on  this  earth  is  one  con- 
tinuous illustration  of  this  law  of  the  Cross.  Let  us 
not  be  afraid  of  those  noble  failures  out  of  which  have 
come  all  the  great  triumphs  of  the  world.  Let  God's 
great  cause  be  dearer  to  us  than  any  personal  or  sectarian 
success.  The  lives  of  not  a  few  of  the  great  religious 
leaders  of  the  last  century  seemed  more  or  less  a  failure 
— Robertson's,     Maurice's,    Colenso's  —  but    they   are 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       97 

having  now  a  second  and  a  better  life  —  the  victory 
which  comes  of  the  apparent  defeat  and  because  of  it. 
Because  they  were  obedient  unto  death  God  hath  highly 
exalted  them.  The  path  to  real  power  still  lies  by  way 
of  the  Cross.  Let  us,  when  we  are  tempted  to  measure 
our  work  by  poor,  vulgar,  earthly  standards,  recall  "  the 
unfinished  life  that  rules  the  world,"  that  broken  body 
hanging  on  a  Roman  cross,  and  the  desponding  cry  of 
the  disciples  :  "  We  thought  that  it  was  He  who  would 
have  redeemed  Israel  !  "  Edward  Irving,  when  he 
commenced  his  ministry  in  the  city  of  Glasgow  well- 
nigh  ninety  years  ago,  resolved  that  he  would  "  demon- 
strate a  higher  style  of  Christianity  —  something  more 
magnanimous,  more  heroical  than  this  age  is  accustomed 
to."  A  higher  style  of  Christianity  is  more  than  ever  our 
need.  Let  us  attempt  it.  Let  us  give  ourselves  to  it. 
Let  it  not  seem  beyond  possibility — too  great  to  hope, 
too  difficult  to  dare.  Let  courage  rise  with  danger — 
the  courage  that  will  welcome  a  noble  failure  rather  than 
be  content  with  a  cheap,  an  easy,  a  mean  success. 

"  All  through  life  I  see  a  Cross 

Where  sons  of  God  yield  up  their  breath  ; 

There  is  no  gain  except  by  loss. 

There  is  no  life  except  through  death  ; 

Nor  glory  but  in  bearing  shame. 

Nor  justice  but  in  taking  blame  ; 
And  that  Eternal  Passion  saith — 

Be  emptied  of  glory  and  right  and  name." 


98  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

VI.  The  Cross  the  Symbol  of  the  Passion  of 

God. 

In  one  of  the  ancient  churches  of  Central  Italy  there 
is  a  unique  representation  of  the  Crucifixion.  Behind 
the  Christ  on  the  Cross  we  catch  a  dim  vision  of  the 
Eternal  Father  ;  the  hands  of  the  Father  behind  the 
hands  of  the  Son,  and  the  nails  which  pierce  the  Son 
piercing  the  Father  also.  We  shrink  from  it  at  first  as 
coarse  and  rude,  but  as  we  think  about  it  we  feel  that 
it  is  the  old  painter  saying  in  the  only  language  which 
he  could  command  what  has  been  so  long  and  strangely 
forgotten,  if  not  in  form  yet  in  reality,  that  God  is 
in  Christ,  that  the  Father  is  in  the  Son,  that  His  love 
had  not  to  be  won  by  sacrifice,  that  it  is  His  love 
which  is  embodied  in  the  sacrifice,  that  the  Cross  and 
Passion  are  the  revelation  in  time  and  space,  in  visible 
and  historical  form,  of  the  grief  and  pain  of  a  God 
who  suffers  for  and  with  His  creation  and  His  children. 
Little,  no  doubt,  did  the  old  Italian  painter  or  the  church 
of  his  age  realise  the  full  import  of  the  symbol  he  used. 
Medieval  theology  was  partly  Christian  truth  and  partly 
Pagan  and  Jewish  superstition,  and  that  is  still  true  of 
much  of  our  theology  ;  but  truth  is  displacing  supersti- 
tion, and  the  law  of  the  Cross  is  being  seen  more  and 
more  clearly  to  be  the  law  of  love  in  heaven  as  on  earth. 
It  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  strange  reluctance  to 
associate  the  idea  of  suffering  and  sacrifice  with  God. 


THE  SYMBOLISM  OF  THE  CROSS       99 

To  be  Infinite  perfection,  Infinite  goodness  and  love, 
God  cannot  be  a  mere  spectator  of  sorrow  and  sin. 
God  and  man  live  by  one  law.  Every  man  that  loveth 
is  begotten  of  God  and  knoweth  God.  Creatorhood 
and  suffering.  Fatherhood  and  pain,  love  and  cross- 
bearing,  are  joined  together  and  cannot  be  put  asunder. 
The  Source  of  all  feeling  and  compassion  cannot  Him- 
self be  devoid  of  feeling  and  compassion.  It  is  not  a 
God  callous  as  to  suffering,  careless  as  to  sin,  which  the 
Bible,  Old  and  New,  reveals,  but  a  God  living  in  the 
life  of  the  human  race,  afflicted  in  its  affliction,  and 
bruised  and  wounded  by  its  iniquity.  Everywhere  the 
love  of  God  is  seen  in  suffering  and  sacrifice.  The 
compassion  of  men  is  not  the  accusation  of  His  good- 
ness, but  the  revelation  and  proof  of  it.  The  sorrows, 
the  sacrifices,  the  martyrdoms  of  the  world's  helpers 
are  His.  The  sacrifice  of  the  Cross  is  not  made  to 
God  ;  it  is  made  by  God,  it  is  part  of  the  universal  and 
perpetual  sacrifice  God  is  ever  and  everywhere  making 
in  order  to  take  away  the  sorrow  and  sin  of  the  world. 

What  a  Gospel  the  Cross  preaches  to  men  and 
women  troubled  by  the  woes  of  life  !  Standing  up 
against  the  dark  sky  it  says  that  God  suffers  in  and 
with  His  creatures  and  His  children,  that  He  is  the 
Chief  of  sufferers,  that  it  is  His  pity  and  love  and 
sympathy  we  see  in  the  pity  and  love  and  sympathy  of 
Christ  and  of  all  Christ-like  souls. 

What    a    Gospel    the    Cross    preaches    to    men   and 


loo  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

women  troubled  by  the  sense  of  sin  and  guilt,  tormented 
by  memories  of  passion  and  shame  !  Knowing  it  to  be 
a  revelation  of  Divine  sorrow  and  sacrifice,  we  cannot 
believe  any  longer  that  we  have  any  Divine  indifference 
or  hostility  to  subdue — the  notion  of  an  angry  God  to 
be  appeased  by  blood  is  abolished  for  ever.  It  reveals 
a  love  that  seeks  and  saves  to  the  uttermost — not 
a  God  from  whom  we  have  to  be  saved,  but  a  God 
who  is  Himself  our  Saviour.  Let  not  your  sins,  men 
and  women,  keep  you  from  God  !  You  may  begin 
a  new  life  at  once  with  the  assurance  that  God  loves 
you,  that  He  has  forgiven  you,  and  that  neither  things 
present  nor  things  to  come  will  separate  you  from 
His  love. 

Let  us  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ  gather 
again  around  the  Cross  of  Christ  and  find,  as  we  stand 
under  its  shadow,  inspiration  to  live  a  life  of  love  and 
sacrifice.  Let  us  hear  and  obey  its  call  to  do  what  we 
see  God  in  Christ  is  doing,  to  be  His  fellow-helpers 
and  fellow-sufferers  in  bearing  and  taking  away  the 
sorrow  and  sin  of  the  world. 


^yuI<cJ^    ^    K^^wA^  -    ^^-J^ 


THE  ATONEMENT  ^ 


"  That  they  all  may  be  one,  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I  in 
Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  Us.  The  glory  which  Thou 
gavest  Me  I  have  given  them." — John  xvii.  21,  22.  - 

It  is  ever  of  supreme  and  vital  moment  to  bring  our 
religious  ideas  into  harmony  with  the  truth  and  nature 
of  things.  The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  although 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  Christianity,  has  undergone 
constant  and  radical  modification  from  age  to  age. 
It  has  only  to  be  traced  through  its  successive  phases 
to  see  a  progressive  moral  evolution.  The  evolution 
is  not  yet  finished.  Popular  representations  of  it,  if 
they  no  longer  shock  our  notions  of  justice  and  have 
a  demoralising  influence,  make  man's  relations  to  God 
too  strained  and  artificial.  Its  generally  accepted  form 
belongs  to  a  stage  of  ethical  and  religious  culture  that 
is  passing  away,  and  will  have  no  place  in  the  purer 
and  more  spiritual  religion  of  the  future. 

The  profound  idea  of  Reconciliation,  which  is  the 
heart  of  the  doctrine,  has  been  obscured  by  interpreta- 
tions and  theories  that  have  allowed  too  little  for  the 

lOI 


I02  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

temporal  and  local  conditions  under  which  the  apostles 
lived  and  thought,  and  by  language  which  has  come 
through  a  Christian  medium,  but  not  from  a  Christian 
source  ;  and  in  changing  its  skies  has  also  changed  its 
significance — language  which  is  not  the  natural  and  just 
expression  of  our  spiritual  experience,  and  not  in  accord 
with  our  mental  and  moral  habit.  It  gets  more  and 
more  difficult  for  an  increasing  number  of  serious- 
minded  people  to  find  in  the  mode  of  representation 
and  style  of  illustration,  which  were  acceptable  to 
persons  passing  out  of  Judaism  and  Paganism  into 
Christianity,  the  prototypes  and  adequate  symbols  of 
their  Christian  faith  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  of  the  era  of  Christ.  They  are  "  faded  meta- 
phors "  which  no  longer  answer  to  their  sense  of  truth. 

"  Not  all  the  blood  of  beasts 
On  Jewish  altars  slain  " 

can  commend  the  Atonement  to  their  reason  or  imagi- 
nation. The  ancient  symbolism  has  its  place  in  the 
history  of  the  Christian  teaching,  but  it  is  now  more 
calculated  to  mislead  and  to  confuse  than  to  suggest  the 
real  truth.  The  new  wine  is  bursting  the  old  bottles. 
The  great  and  final  ideas  of  Christianity  are  escaping 
from  their  long  burden  of  tradition  and  dogma,  and 
from  the  Jewish  forms  which  they  originally  bore,  into 
new  and  more  universal  forms.  Let  those  who 
honestly  can,  continue  to  use  the  archaic  and  Hebraistic 


THE  ATONEMENT  103 

language  of  the  early  teachers  of  our  religion  ;  but 
playing  with  words  in  the  exposition  of  serious  and 
lofty  themes  often  comes  dangerously  near  to  grieving 
the  Spirit  of  Truth.  Dante  speaks  of  being  obliged 
to  give  the  words  he  used  a  significance  which  they 
never  had  before,  but  a  like  exercise  of  imaginative 
genius  is  a  somewhat  perilous  experiment  when  made 
by  the  teacher  who  to-day  seeks  to  interpret  religion. 
To  keep  phrases  hallowed  by  tradition  and  the  associa- 
tions of  worship,  and  then  to  explain  them  away  by 
terms  which  make  them  mean  something  entirely 
different,  is  a  practice  that  is  breeding  a  profound  and 
fatal  distrust  of  the  modern  pulpit.  Casuistry,  obscur- 
antism, and  pretending  to  believe  what  is  not  actually 
believed,  ought  to  find  no  favour  among  the  disciples 
of  Him  who  said,  "  He  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  My 
voice."  We  ought  to  love  truth  more  than  we  fear 
departure  from  tradition,  and  not  be  too  slow  and  afraid 
to  separate  the  Christian  ideas  from  their  incidents, 
accidents,  and  imperfect  products.  God  hath  made  us 
ministers  of  the  New  Testament,  not  of  the  letter  but 
of  the  spirit.  The  present  has  its  claims  as  well  as  the 
past.  Religion,  like  everything  else,  is  subject  to  the 
laws  of  development,  and  the  canon  of  its  Holy  Scrip- 
tures is  never  closed.  God  is  eternal  and  unchangeable, 
but  the  revelation  of  His  character  and  will  is  continuous 
and  progressive,  and  man  is  the  child  of  growth.  In 
the  interpretation  of  the  relation  of  God  to  His  creation 


I04  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  His  children  immense  progress  has  been  made. 
To  our  thought  the  physical  and  spiritual  universe  have 
both  been  reconstructed.  We  are  approaching  the  view 
of  God  as  a  Being  essentially  united  with  the  universe, 
the  immanent  life  of  all  things,  while  transcending  all 
things,  requiring  no  device  to  bring  Him  back  to  a 
harmony  from  which  He  has  never  departed,  revealing 
Himself  in  the  order  of  the  world,  and  not  by  occasional 
interruptions  or  breaks  in  that  order.  The  conception 
of  natural  law — law  as  a  principle  and  method  of  vital 
action — has  taken  the  place  of  juridical  law  by  which 
past  ages  shaped  their  idea  of  redemption.  The  Church 
has  also  grown  in  grace  and  the  knowledge  of  its 
Lord  and  Saviour.  It  has  re-discovered  the  secret  of 
Jesus — the  large  and  mighty  trust  in  God  as  eternal 
and  invincible  Goodness,  which  Jesus  quickened  in 
the  consciousness  of  mankind.  The  re-affirmation  of 
the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God  in  modern  days  has 
led  to  a  renaissance  of  faith,  and  to  a  re-interpretation 
of  the  entire  theology  of  Christendom.  We  see  God 
in  Christ,  and  know  God  by  Christ,  as  never  before, 
and  this  divine  knowledge  is  making  all  things  new. 
The  whole  range  of  human  life  and  thought  has 
risen  to  a  higher  moral  and  spiritual  level.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement  must  share  in  this  uplifting 
and  transfiguration  of  thought  and  faith  and  life.  It 
must  be  put  in  a  way  that  meets  and  satisfies  our 
spiritual   and   intellectual   needs,   and   while   doing   no 


THE  ATONEMENT  105 

violence  to  what  else  we  know  of  the  world  and  life, 
corresponds  to  the  truth  of  Christianity,  at  least  in  its 
simplest  expression  in  the  personal  message  of  Jesus 
Christ — the  proper  norm  of  Christian  theology.  In  the 
past  it  has  been  narrowed  down  to  mean  one  particular 
thing,  and  been  identified  too  exclusively  with  one  great 
historical  transaction  or  event.  It  is  passing  out  of  this 
limited  significance  into  a  larger  meaning  which  holds 
all  that  is  true  in  ancient  doctrine,  and  infinitely  more. 


I.  The  Nature  and  Need  of  Atonement 

When  we  go  behind  its  technical  sense  we  find  in  the 
word  itself  a  suggestion  of  the  true  and  final  form  of 
the  idea  of  the  Atonement.  To  be  at  one  with  God  is 
the  Atonement  which  is  the  profound  and  vital  need  of 
humanity  ;  and  the  making  of  humanity  one  with  God — 
the  process  of  realising  the  Divine  ideal — is  the  work 
of  Atonement.  Not  to  be  at  one  with  God  is  for  man 
to  be  at  war  with  himself,  and  in  imperfect  and  wrong 
relations  with  all  other  beings  and  things.  Only  in 
moral  oneness  with  God  can  he  find  his  full  and  final 
perfection  and  peace. 

Atonement  thus  considered  is  the  supreme  idea  and 
ultimate  purpose  of  all  real  religion.  In  the  highest 
form  which  religion  has  reached  historically,  it  receives, 
both  in  word  and  life,  its  perfect  expression.  In  the 
prayer  of  Jesus,  "  That  they  all  may  be  one,  even  as 


/ 


io6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me,  and  1  in  Thee,  that  they  also 
may  be  one  in  Us,"  the  idea  of  Atonement  finds  its 
most  spiritual  utterance.  In  the  life  of  Jesus  we  see, 
as  in  a  visible  parable,  what  it  is  for  man  to  be  one 
with  God.  He  is  the  historical  representative  of  that 
perfect  union  of  the  human  and  Divine  of  which  the 
constitution  and  experience  of  man  have  always  been 
the  prophecy. 

The  essential  unity  of  God  and  man  is  the  only 
foundation  on  which  any  adequate  conception  of  the 
Atonement  can  rest.  It  is  the  truth  of  truths  concern- 
ing this  subject.  But  the  tendency  of  religion  in  its 
cruder  forms  has  ever  been  to  emphasise  and  magnify 
the  distance  between  God  and  man,  and  out  of  the 
attempt  to  reduce  that  separation  have  come  the  gross 
ideas  of  sacrifice  which,  passing  over  into  Christian 
thought,  have  gathered  about  the  Cross  and  put  it  to 
an  open  shame.  We  must  learn  to  think  of  God  as 
in  man  and  his  life,  and  not  as  outward,  separate  and 
remote,  coming  near  only  by  arbitrary  miracle,  and 
related  only  by  artificial  conjunction.  The  idea  of 
union  with  God  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  man.  The 
genealogy  of  man  as  man  has  no  merely  zoological  root. 
His  childhood  to  God  is  the  most  radical  fact  of  his 
being.  He  is  God's  offspring,  begotten,  not  made. 
Deity  and  humanity  are  not  two  alien  natures,  but  one 
nature.  The  essential  life  of  man  is  akin  to  the  essential 
life  of  God.     Reason,  thought,  feeling,  justice,  truth. 


THE  ATONEMENT  107 

mercy,  and  love  are  kindred  in  God  and  man.  The 
Divine  is  but  the  human  seen  in  its  source  and  per- 
fection. "  I  and  My  Father  are  one  "  is  an  idea  true 
of  all  humanity. 

God  and  man  are  in  idea  one  ;  but  the  fulfilment  of 
that  ideal  is  the  long  and  slow  work  of  God  and  man 
"  labouring  together  "  in  the  succession  of  ages.  Not 
in  any  first  man  do  we  see  the  ideal  relation  between 
God  and  man  realised.  The  sublime  affirmation  of 
the  Hebrew  seer,  "  God  made  man  in  His  own  image," 
is  prophecy,  not  history — the  end  seen  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  the  last  and  not  the  first  Adam  that  bears 
the  image  of  the  heavenly.  The  manifestation  of  the 
sons  of  men  as  the  sons  of  God  is  not  the  starting- 
point  but  the  goal  of  human  progress.  History  is  the 
story  of  the  making  of  man  in  the  Divine  image  ;  it 
reveals  man  becoming  less  animal  and  more  spiritual, 
climbing  up  from  low  estate  to  the  true  life  of  a  son 
of  God — to  sit  with  Christ  on  His  throne.  In  Jesus 
Christ  we  see  the  Messiah  of  the  spiritual  evolution, 
the  mark  of  our  high  calling,  showing  us  what  we 
realise  slowly,  the  type  and  promise  of  our  ultimate 
perfection  and  destiny. 

What  the  Atonement  means  is  a  matter  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  facts  of  our  nature  and  condition.  It  is 
clearly  not  a  lost  unity  that  has  to  be  restored.  Man 
cannot  have  departed  from  a  type  which  he  has  never 
realised,    fallen    away    from    a    standard    he  has  never 


io8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

reached.  Union  with  God  is  a  moral  relation  to  be 
attained,  not  preserved.  The  race  of  mankind  has 
never  been  more  one  with  God  than  it  is  to-day. 

"  In  Adam's  fall 
We  sinned  all," 

is  theory,  not  fact.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment is  not  bound  up  with  any  such  unscientific  and 
unhistorical  positions.  Science  has  removed  Adam 
to  the  region  of  myths,  and  the  whole  theology  based 
on  that  foundation  must  therefore  be  reconstructed.  It 
is  the  rise,  not  the  fall,  of  man  with  which  the  study  of 
history  makes  us  acquainted.  The  advance,  it  is  true, 
has  been  painfully  slow  and  gradual,  and  not  without 
reversions  ;  but  looking  largely  at  history — 

"Since  time  began 
We  see  the  steady  gain  of  man." 

There  is  a  Divine  order  which  no  disorders  can  dis- 
turb, and  to  which  falls  are  but  stages  of  evolution. 
We  are  living  in  a  growing,  not  in  a  ruined  world, 
under  God's  love  and  blessing,  not  under  His  wrath 
and  curse.  Imperfection  is  no  proof  of  depravity. 
Tendencies  must  be  distinguished  from  results,  and 
powers  and  passions,  good  in  their  right  degree,  be 
separated  in  thought  from  their  misdirection  and  per- 
version. It  is  from  an  outworn  view  of  human  nature 
there  has  come  the  idea  that  the  natural  development 
of  man  must  inevitably  be  that  of  constant  and  chronic 


THE  ATONEMENT  109 

enmity  against  goodness  and  God.  Growth  is  the  law 
of  the  world.  The  sense  of  sin  is  not  the  sign  of 
degeneration,  but  of  a  moral  uprising.  It  is,  as  Carlyle 
says,  "  the  beginning  of  all  progress,"  and  until  it  is 
awakened,  man  is  little  more  than  an  animal.  What 
we  see,  when  we  look  back,  is  man  rising  through 
many  struggles  to  his  true  life,  seeking  God  by  a  law 
of  his  being.  "  Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,"  "  Restless, 
till  I  rest  in  Thee,"  are  words  which  interpret  the 
conscious  and  unconscious  aspiration  and  movement 
of  man's  whole  life  upon  this  earth.  Because  man  is 
what  he  is,  he  cannot  remain  satisfied  in  the  outer 
circles  of  being,  nor  endure  to  be  far  away  from  Him 
who  is  the  Beginnmg  and  the  End  of  his  life.  Toward 
and  into  that  inner  circle  of  unity  between  Father  and 
Son  he  must  press  and  enter,  if  his  life  is  to  be  any- 
thing but  a  living  death.  From  this  point  of  view, 
the  Atonement  that  is  a  vital  human  need  is  no  making 
up  of  a  previous  strife,  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine 
idea  of  man.  It  is  effected  through  self-development 
and  self-realisation.  Man  comes  to  God  as  he  comes  to 
himself ;  and  to  come  to  himself  he  must  come  to  God. 
Atonement  is,  further,  the  reconciliation  of  the  whole 
man,  and  his  whole  life  and  world,  to  God.  To  be  one 
with  God  is  to  be  one  with  the  entire  truth  and  order 
of  things  with  which  man  and  God,  working  together, 
have  to  do.  The  physical,  intellectual,  moral  and 
spiritual  life  of  man,  his  personal  and  social  life  in  all 


no  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

their  relations  and  aspects,  are  one  life  in  the  Divine 
idea,  and  have  to  be  brought  into  conformity  with  the 
Divine  purpose  and  will.  A  high  and  noble  reconcilia- 
tion is  possible  between  the  lower  and  higher  elements 
of  human  nature,  and  on  it  depend  our  inward  peace 
and  outward  power  and  progress.  Good  and  evil  within 
us  are  not  separate  powers  and  passions,  but  degrees  of 
the  same  thing,  the  right  use  good,  only  the  abuse  evil. 
The  union  of  the  mind  of  man  with  the  Absolute 
Mind,  the  correspondence  of  his  thought  with  fact  and 
truth,  is  the  aspect  which  the  Atonement  takes  in  the 
region  of  the  intellectual  life.  Thinking  as  we  please, 
believing  as  we  like,  is  the  alienation  of  the  mind  from 
God.  It  is  the  teaching  of  all  experience  that  we  are 
conditioned  morally,  as  well  as  physically,  and  can  only 
develop  healthily  as  we  follow  certain  lines  which, 
though  implicated  in  our  nature  and  revealed  in  our 
experience,  are  no  more  the  creation  of  experience  than 
are  the  laws  which  keep  and  guide  the  stars  in  their 
courses.  The  Divine  order  for  men  in  social  relations 
is  clearly  meant  to  be  that  of  a  family  ;  and  we  are 
only  in  our  right,  or  righteous  state,  when  we  are 
living  and  working  together  fraternally.  We  cannot 
be  one  with  God  until  we  are  one  with  our  fellows, 
cannot  be  within  the  circle  of  right  universal  relations 
until  we  are  in  right  relations  with  those  who  are 
nearest  to  us.  The  self-regardful  type  of  life  is  enmity 
against    God.     Reconciliation  to    the    laws  of  justice, 


THE  ATONEMENT  1 1 1 

love,  and  brotherhood  is  reconciliation  to  God.  The 
laws  which  regulate  the  immediate  communion  of  the 
soul  with  God  are  more  subtle  and  less  capable  of 
exact  expression  than  those  which  regulate  our  physical 
and  social  life  ;  yet  there  is  a  Divine  order  here  without 
variableness,  an  order  which  is  revealed  and  confirmed 
by  all  religious  experience.  It  is  the  pure  in  heart  who 
see  God  ;  it  is  he  who  dwelleth  in  love  who  dwelleth  in 
God;  and  it  is  what  St.  John  calls  "the  Son,"  the  filial 
mind  and  spirit  in  man,  that  brings  him  to  the  Father. 

Reconciliation  to  our  earthly  lot,  with  all  its  fixed 
and  inevitable  conditions  and  issues,  is  another  aspect 
of  the  Christian  idea  of  Atonement.  To  be  at  peace 
with  God  is  to  be  at  peace  with  things,  with  all  the 
things  which  God  has  ordained  for  our  human  disci- 
pline ;  at  peace  with  the  laws  of  labour  and  struggle 
and  change,  with  the  laws  of  life  and  death.  And  it  is 
just  in  proportion  as  man  brings  himself,  or  is  brought, 
into  conformity  and  harmony  with  the  laws  that  control 
and  guide  his  destiny,  and  with  the  whole  idea  and 
order  of  his  being  and  life,  that  union  with  God  becomes 
a  reality,  reconciliation  is  effected,  and  the  Atonement 
practically  completed.  There  is  no  other  way  of  atone- 
ment than  the  way  of  obedience  —  every  man's  free 
obedience  to  the  Divine  laws  of  his  being  and  life. 

But  who  is  thus  at  one  with  God  ?  It  is  the  selfish 
will  and  order,  not  the  Divine  will  and  order,  which  is 
more  or  less  universally  followed  and  obeyed.      Man 


112  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

everywhere  is  in  conflict  with  himself  and  in  conflict 
with  his  fellows  because  he  is  in  conflict  with  the 
Divine  will,  because  he  is  at  strife  with  the  order  which 
God  has  ordained  for  him  and  his  life,  because  his 
powers  and  affections  are  estranged  from  God  and  are 
restless  in  their  departure  from  Him.  It  is  only  by 
a  figure  of  speech  we  can  speak  of  breaking  God's 
laws.  We  fail  to  obey  them,  set  ourselves  against 
them,  and  they  break  us.  The  moral  order  requires 
no  special  and  external  vindication  of  its  majesty. 
God  does  not  need  to  be  appeased,  for  His  laws  never 
fail  to  punish  sin  in  their  own  good  time  and  way. 
But  compensation  He  does  not  exact  or  need.  It  is 
not  the  suffering  of  the  sinner,  but  his  restoration  to 
goodness  and  a  life  of  conscious  harmony  with  the 
Divine  will  that  satisfies  the  holy  and  righteous  God. 
Propitiation,  expiation,  and  substitution,  in  their  current 
interpretations  and  forms,  are  as  little  in  accord  with 
what  we  see  to  be  the  order  of  things  in  the  uni- 
verse as  they  are  with  the  tone  and  tendency  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  and  the  real  and  profound  needs  of 
the  enlightened  soul. 

II.  The  Work  of  God  in  the  World  is  the 
Work  of  Atonement 

Conceptions    of  the  Atonement  have  hitherto  been 
very  largely   framed   upon  the  thought  that  Deity  is 


THE  ATONEMENT  113 

irresponsible.  But  Creatorhood  and  Fatherhood  have 
their  obligations  and  duties  as  well  as  creaturehood 
and  childhood.  The  Creator  cannot  leave  His  creation 
unfinished.  The  Father  must  seek  to  be  one  with  His 
children  and  to  bring  them  to  perfection.  We  have 
no  choice  of  existence,  but  He  from  whom  we  came, 
if  only  to  satisfy  Himself,  will  have  regard  to  the  work 
of  His  hands  and  respond  to  the  appeal,  "  I  am  Thine  ; 
save  me."  The  movement  will  not  be  all,  or  chiefly, 
on  the  side  of  man.  It  is  the  essential  nature  of  love 
to  seek  and  to  save.  The  righteousness  and  blessed- 
ness of  man  are  necessary  to  God. 

The  work  of  atonement  is  God's  eternal  work — a 
universal  world-process.  We  cannot  conceive  of  the 
Divine  Goodness  as  ever  being  insensate  and  passive, 
or  as  other  than  ceaselessly  compassionate  and  helpful. 
The  life  of  sacrifice  is  the  law  of  love  for  heaven  as  for 
earth.  Because  God  is  love,  to  create  is  to  suffer,  and 
to  call  mankind  into  being  is  to  be  afflicted  in  its  afflic- 
tions. Wholly  outside  His  world  God  has  never  been  ; 
He  has  always  been  in  it  :  at  the  heart  of  its  age-long 
struggle  between  good  and  evil,  taking  upon  Himself 
the  sins  and  carrying  the  sorrows  of  our  race.  It  was 
not  a  new  and  strange  work  the  beloved  Son  of  God 
came  to  do,  but  the  work  which  He  saw  His  Father 
doing  continuously.  The  Divine  mission  of  Jesus  is 
not  so  much  an  isolated  interpolation  in  human  history 
as    the  reflection  and  revelation  of   the  universal  and 


114  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

eternal  labour,  passion  and  sacrifice  of  God.  Without 
Jesus  the  world  was  for  thousands  of  years,  but  not 
without  the  merciful,  gracious  and  redeeming  God. 
"  His  goings  forth  have  been  of  old  and  from  ever- 
lasting." The  whole  economy  of  things  is  so  ordered 
as  to  bring  men  at  every  point  into  contact  with  God. 
This  is  the  final  meaning  and  end  of  all  the  forces 
that  enter  into  human  life.  By  all  the  natural  processes 
and  experiences  of  life,  by  the  discipline  of  hardship 
and  toil,  joy  and  sorrow,  by  the  retribution  that  warns 
us  back  to  right,  and  the  moral  purpose  that  is  in  all 
events,  God  from  the  beginning  has  been  reducing 
and  destroying  the  separation  between  Himself  and 
His  children. 

But  the  work  of  God  on  man  is  not  so  much  a 
forcing  process  from  without  as  an  inducing  process 
from  within.  Influence,  not  coercion,  is  the  Divine 
method.  Immanent  in  all  men.  He  co-operates  with 
the  aspiration  and  effort  of  every  man  toward  light 
and  goodness,  and  therefore  with  the  universal  move- 
ment of  the  race.  He  is  the  ultimate  Cause  of  progress 
and  the  Unseen  Source  and  inspiration  of  all  our 
human  strivings  to  draw  near  unto  Him — even  of  those 
very  strivings  which  in  our  ignorance  we  make  with  a 
view  to  reconcile  Him.  We  seek  Him  because  He  first 
seeks  us.  The  spirit  of  truth  and  goodness  is  His 
Spirit  ;  and  what  we  find  of  that  spirit  in  ourselves  and 
in  others,  in  this  age  and  in  all  ages,  proves  that  God 


THE  ATONEMENT  115 

is  ever  nigh  to  our  humanity,  giving  an  atoning  energy 
and  effect  to  all  noble  striving  and  sacrifice. 

The  Divine  action  on  man  is  mediate  as  well  as 
immediate — through  men,  whom  God  raises  up,  endows 
and  inspires,  and  in  whom  He  lives  and  suffers,  and 
by  whom  He  makes  known  His  character  and  will,  and 
reconciles  the  world  unto  Himself.  Many  have  taken 
part  in  this  Divine  ministry  of  reconciliation  before,  as 
after,  the  advent  of  the  Son  of  God.  Revelation  is 
especially  the  means  of  Atonement,  revelation  that  has 
grown  clearer  from  age  to  age,  as  men  have  become 
more  developed  morally,  and  more  sensitive  and  recep- 
tive spiritually.  God  must  be  known  for  men  to 
become  one  with  Him.  A  true  knowledge  of  God 
removes  the  fear  that  is  born  of  ignorance,  and  quickens 
in  human  souls  that  spirit  of  faith  which  is  the  strength 
and  salvation  of  humanity. 

III.  The  Work  of  Atonement  Specialised 
IN  Jesus  Christ 

The  most  remarkable  and  characteristic  thing  about 
Jesus,  and  that  which  gives  the  keynote  to  His  place 
and  mission  in  the  world,  is  His  absolute  renounce- 
ment of  the  idea  that  He  said  or  did  anything  of 
Himself.  "  Not  I,  but  My  Father,"  is  the  sum  and 
substance  of  His  teaching  concerning  Himself.  It  is 
the  Father's   work  into  which   the  Son  enters.      It  is 


ii6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

not  Christ  apart  from  God,  but  God  in  Christ,  said  the 
apostle,  who  is  reconciling  the  world  to  Himself. 

The  entire  manifestation  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  not 
merely  the  death  on  the  Cross,  was,  and  is,  the  power 
of  atonement  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  With  Him 
there  entered  a  new  and  Divine  power  into  human 
history.  Those  who  are  unable  to  separate  the  Incarna- 
tion from  the  normal  processes  of  human  life,  neverthe- 
less see  in  it  the  climax  and  crown  of  a  vast  upward 
movement  which  in  all  its  great  stages  was  a  Divine 
revelation.  Whatever  prophecies  there  may  have  been 
of  the  Divine  Sonship  of  humanity  in  the  experience 
of  men  in  the  past,  it  came  forth  into  clear  and  com- 
plete consciousness  for  the  first  time  in  Him  who  said, 
"  I  and  My  Father  are  one."  It  is  this  perfect  realisa- 
tion of  filial  union  and  communion  with  God  that  is 
the  central  fact  of  our  Christian  faith.  The  conscious- 
ness of  sonship  to  God  is  also  the  distinctively  Christian 
experience.  By  all  the  methods  of  personal  influence 
Christ  quickens  in  human  souls  prepared  to  receive  it 
His  own  sense  of  filial  relationship  to  the  Father  of 
spirits.  Drawn  by  sympathy  into  spiritual  intimacy 
with  Him,  they  are  drawn  by  Him  into  filial  intimacy 
with  His  Father.  "  As  many  as  received  Him,  to  them 
gave  He  power  to  become  sons  of  God."  Further, 
it  is  the  filial  spirit  that  Christ  quickens  in  human 
hearts  that  is  the  medium  of  our  communion  with 
God,  and  it,  when  fully  attained,  makes  God  and  man 


THE  ATONEMENT  117 

at  one  and  at  peace.  It  is  this  experience  of  sonship 
produced  and  perfected  in  man,  and  not  an  external 
historical  transaction,  that  is  pre-eminently  and  peculiarly 
the  atoning  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  (It  is  in  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John  we  find  the  Atonement  presented  as  a  fact 
of  consciousness  or  experience.  The  Johannean  Atone- 
ment has  been  set  over  against  the  Pauline  Atonement, 
but  the  contradiction  is  not  so  inward  and  radical  as  it  is 
often  represented  to  be.  When  St.  Paul  gets  clear  of 
Judaistic  and  other  entanglements,  and  rises  into  the 
pure  air  of  absolute  truth,  his  word  is  not  essentially 
different  from  that  of  the  apostle  of  spiritual  religion.) 
The  whole  ministry  of  Christ,  from  its  beginning  to 
its  close,  was  a  ministry  of  reconciliation — a  power  of 
atonement.  By  what  He  was,  what  He  said,  and 
what  He  did,  He  sought  to  make  God  known,  to  save 
men  from  those  false  ideas  of  the  Divine  character  and 
ways  which  set  human  thought  and  feeling  wrong,  to 
expel  suspicion  and  fear  from  their  hearts,  and  to  make 
them  realise  that  they  were  His  Father's  children,  and 
therefore  had  no  right  to  despise  themselves  or  despair 
of  themselves.  They  saw  in  His  compassion  the 
Divine  compassion,  in  His  love  the  revelation  and 
assurance  of  the  Divine  love,  in  His  forgiveness  the 
type  and  promise  of  the  Divine  forgiveness,  and  in  His 
sufferings  Divine  goodness  suffering  freely  to  save  the 
sinful.  Coming  to  know  God  as  He  is  revealed  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  to  trust  and  rejoice  in  God,  and  to  have 


ii8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

sympathies  and  harmonies  created  where  previously 
dwelt  antipathies  and  antagonisms.  When  on  earth 
our  Lord  also  sought  to  make  men  in  all  the  relations 
and  provinces  of  their  life  at  one  with  the  Divine  Will. 
He  fought  against  disease,  ignorance,  injustice,  hate 
and  all  forms  of  selfishness,  as  the  enemies  of  God  and 
man.  The  great  burden  of  His  message  was  God's 
kingdom,  God's  order,  and  He  suffered  and  died  daily 
to  reconcile  men  to  the  Divine  order  of  their  life. 

The  Cross,  although  it  embodied  no  principle  that 
was  not  illustrated  in  His  life,  was  yet  the  crowning 
manifestation  of  the  principle,  of  the  law,  purpose,  and 
spirit  of  His  life.  It  was  the  sign  and  symbol  of  the 
perfect  identification  of  Himself  with  man  and  with 
God.  It  was  no  wonder  that  in  a  strain  of  prophecy 
He  looked  forward  to  the  Cross  as  the  means  of  rais- 
line  Him  above  all  the  mists  and  clouds  of  mortal  mis- 
understanding,  prejudice,  and  hatred,  to  a  spiritual 
height  where  He  would  be  seen  in  all  the  glory  of  His 
.Divine  obedience  and  charity,  and  from  which  He 
would  draw  to  Himself  the  love  and  loyalty  of  mankind. 

No  word  sums  up  and  expresses  more  fully  the 
influence  of  Jesus  Christ  than  the  word  Atonement. 
By  what  He  was  and  said  and  did,  by  the  power  of  His 
spirit  and  the  affections  He  quickens,  He  makes  men, 
to-day  as  yesterday,  at  one  with  God,  at  one  with  their 
fellows,  at  one  with  themselves,  and  at  one  with  life  in 
all  its  larger   and   deeper   meanings   and    ends.     The 


THE  ATONEMENT  119 

history  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  a  history  of  Atone- 
ment. That  short  life,  to  all  appearance  crushed  and 
ended  on  the  Cross,  has  expanded  into  the  life  of 
Christendom,  and  been  an  endless  power  of  progress. 
The  faith  and  spirit  of  Christ,  wherever  they  go,  subdue 
discords,  heal  alienations,  harmonise  differences,  and 
so  make  peace. 

IV.  The  Atonement  an   Unfinished,  Continuous 
AND  Progressive  Work 

The  Atonement  was  not  completed  when  Jesus 
finished  His  work  on  earth.  In  Him  it  found  and 
finds  its  ideal  fulfilment,  but  not  its  actual  completion. 
The  isolation  of  His  work  from  the  universal  work  of 
God  in  the  world  and  from  the  work  of  the  Church  (that 
is,  the  Christian  part  of  humanity)  is  wholly  without 
warrant  in  the  New  Testament.  Both  in  Gospel  and 
Epistle,  and  with  endless  richness  of  appeal,  men  are 
called  to  be  what  Jesus  was,  and  to  do  what  He  did. 
All  the  great  things  attributed  to  Him  are  expected  and 
demanded  of  His  followers.  It  is  one  of  the  unspeak- 
able results  of  His  influence  on  men  that  they  are  moved 
to  follow  in  His  footsteps,  take  up  His  Cross,  fill  up 
that  which  is  behind  of  His  sufferings,  and  become  active 
sharers  in  that  Divine,  eternal  sacrifice  by  which  the 
world  is  being  delivered  from  its  evil.  It  is  not  by 
imputing,  but   imparting  righteousness  ;    not   by  sub- 


I20  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

stituting  His  obedience  for  ours,  but  by  inspiring  us  to 
obey  ;  not  by  displacing,  but  reinforcing  our  personal 
will  and  activity,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  power  of  God  and 
the  wisdom  of  God.  The  outward  facts  of  His  life, 
the  Crucifixion  and  Resurrection  especially,  only  gain 
their  real  and  highest  meaning  when  they  are  translated 
into  moral  and  spiritual  experiences,  and  we  are  able 
to  say  with  St.  Paul,  "  I  am  crucified  with  Christ "  ;  "I 
am  risen  with  Christ."  It  is  not  by  any  outward  re- 
liance on  what  Jesus  was  and  what  He  did  the  world 
is  to  be  saved,  but  by  men  who,  through  the  power 
of  His  Spirit,  have  been  brought  into  moral  union  with 
God,  and  are  inspired  by  the  passion  of  the  Cross,  enter- 
ing into  the  work  of  Christ  and  prolonging  and  repeating 
His  sacrifice  in  their  own  lives.  They  are  the  hiding- 
place  of  His  power,  and  His  ever-renewed  and  ever- 
growing body.  "  As  Thou  hast  sent  Me  into  the  world, 
so  have  I  sent  them  into  the  world."  "The  glory 
which  Thou  gavest  Me  I  have  given  them."  Bearing 
the  sorrows  and  iniquities  of  the  world,  taking  away  its 
sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself,  helping  to  reconcile  it 
to  God — this  is  what  every  man  is  doing  who  bears 
worthily  the  name  of  the  Crucified,  and  lives  and  burns 
in  His  fellowship. 

Every  Sunday  in  thousands  of  churches  God  is 
thanked  for  "  the  redemption  of  the  world  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  That  thanksgiving,  when  thought- 
fully offered,  is  inspired  by  faith  and  hope.     For  what 


THE  ATONEMENT  121 

we  see  around  us  is  not  a  world  really  redeemed,  but 
only  a  world  that  is  being  redeemed.  The  actual 
redemption  of  humanity  is  coincident  with  its  moral 
and  spiritual  progress,  and  can  only  be  accomplished  by 
the  slow  and  constant  operation  of  the  Spirit  and  power 
of  God.  But  the  Divine  power  is  no  abstraction,  and 
the  Divine  Spirit  no  wandering  ghost.  The  unit  of 
power  is  not  God  nor  man  in  isolation.  God  in  the 
world,  reconciling  it  to  Himself,  means  God  and  man 
working  together  :  the  Divine  power  and  Spirit  in 
human  hearts  and  lives,  permeating  and  quickening 
them  as  the  infusion  of  a  higher  life.  The  Atonement 
is  still  in  process  of  completion.  Into  the  Son's  work, 
which  is  also  the  Father's,  we  are  called  to  enter  ;  called 
to  hasten,  by  our  life  and  labour,  the  time  of  the  great 
Reconciliation,  when  man's  moral  being  shall  be  received 
into  the  unity  of  creation,  and  things  in  heaven  and  on 
earth  shall  be  one,  and  God,  that  is  Good,  be  all  in  all ! 

"  Dear  Father  of  the  human  heart, 
The  whole  wide  world  atone  ; 
What  Thou  hast  been  to  us,  impart 
To  all  ;   make  all  Thine  own." 


THE   GOD   OF   JESUS 

"  To  glorify  with  one  accord  and  one  mouth  the  God  and  Father  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." — Rom.  xv.  6. 

In  one  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato  it  is  said  that  the 
highest  attainment  of  man  is  to  know  the  gods  aright 
and  to  live  accordingly.  The  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  in  the  memorable  prayer  which  sums  up  in 
words  of  truth  and  loveliness  the  spirit  and  purpose  of 
the  life  of  Jesus,  says  that  it  is  eternal  life  to  know  God. 
The  proper  study  of  mankind,  we  hear  it  often  said, 
is  man.  Is  it  not  God  .''  The  greater  includes  the 
less.  Religion  is  the  voluntary  communion  between 
two  distinct  and  free  personalities,  God  and  man  ;  and 
yet,  without  ceasing  to  beheve  this  with  utmost  convic- 
tion and  confidence,  there  is  a  deep  sense  in  which  we 
may  think  of  God  as  the  ultimate  and  all-comprehend- 
ing Reality.  Whether  we  look  without  or  within  our- 
selves, it  is  with  God  we  have  constantly  to  do.  All 
knowledge  of  nature  and  man  is  knowledge  of  God. 
We  find  God  when  we  find  the  truth  and  law  of  things. 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  123 

We  find  God  when  we  find  ourselves,  and  find  Him 
more  and  more  as  our  spiritual  life  rises  into  clearness 
and  power.  We  find  God  wherever  we  find  Order, 
Harmony,  Beauty,  Truth,  Wisdom,  Justice,  Goodness, 
and  Love. 

But  it  is  not  by  mere  searching  on  our  part  we  are 
left  to  find  out  God.  God  is  constantly  finding  us 
out — even  when  we  leave  Him  unsought.  St.  Paul 
rebuked  men  long  ago  for  having  no  knowledge  of 
God  :  "  Some  have  no  knowledge  of  God  ;  I  speak 
this  to  your  shame."  His  rebuke  would  not  have 
been  pertinent,  there  would  be  no  moral  guilt  in 
ignorance,  if  God  were  unknowable.  It  is  because 
God  can  be  known  of  men  with  a  real  knowledge — a 
knowledge  that  corresponds  to  reality,  that  ignorance 
of  God  is  not  only  sorrow  but  sin. 

It  is  a  mysterious  universe  truly  in  which  we  live, 
but  not  a  universe  which  we  can  describe  as  unknown, 
unknowable,  unintelligible.  What  we  call  its  mysteries 
are  the  limitations  of  our  powers.  There  is  not  any- 
where the  faintest  sign  that  He  with  whom  we  have 
to  do  is  hiding  His  secrets  from  us.  Their  unfolding 
simply  waits  upon  our  development.  The  unknown 
exists  because  of  our  finite  and  immature  powers, 
our  limited  experience  and  imperfect  character,  but 
not  the  unknowable.  To  know  God  we  only  need 
the  disciplined  and  earnest  mind,  the  pure  and  sensitive 
imagination,  the    sympathetic   and   faithful  heart,    the 


124  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

loyal  will,  and  the  filial  spirit  of  trust,  love,  and  obedience. 
God  is  in  His  world,  the  cosmos  is  His  revelation,  and 
we  have  but  to  open  our  eyes  and  minds  and  hearts 
to  the  things  that  are  near  us  to  see  power  and  wisdom 
and  goodness,  and  to  be  assured  that  we  live  in  a  Divine 
universe.  "  That  which  may  be  known  of  God,"  said 
St.  Paul,  "  is  manifest  in  man."  All  that  is  noblest, 
sweetest,  and  best  in  human  life  and  character  is  a 
revelation  of  God.  The  Hebrew  Psalmist  argues,  "  He 
that  made  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?  "  and  the  Christian 
poet  completes  the  argument,  "  He  that  creates  love 
in  human  hearts,  shall  He  not  love  ?  "  There  is  nothing 
good  in  man  which  has  not  its  perfect  and  infinite 
counterpart  in  God.  In  the  Invisible  and  Eternal  Life 
from  whom  all  beings  and  things  proceed,  there  must 
be  that  which  corresponds  in  a  spiritual  and  infinite 
way  with  the  powers  and  qualities  which  are  highest  in 
man — thought,  wisdom,  purpose,  goodness,  and  love. 
We  have  therefore  but  to  get  acquainted  with  ourselves, 
with  the  noblest  aspects  of  our  humanity,  in  order  to 
become  acquainted  with  God  ;  and  when  we  find  God 
in  ourselves  we  are  thereby  prepared  to  find  Him 
everywhere — especially  in  Christ.  For  the  coming  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ  is  not  an  isolated  event,  an  entirely 
new  thing  in  the  history  of  our  race,  but  the  fuller  un- 
veiling of  Eternal  Reality,  a  more  perfect  manifestation 
of  the  Holy  and  Merciful  Presence  in  which  man  has 
always  lived.     We  must  not  separate  the  less  perfect 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  125 

from  the  more  perfect  forms  of  the  Divine  manifesta- 
tion. God  in  Christ  and  God  out  of  Christ  are  not 
two  but  one.  Man  and  Christ  and  God  are  of  the 
same  nature.  Whatever  God  is,  He  is  always  and 
everywhere.  It  is  only  unveiling  or  manifestation  that 
can  be  referred  to  time  and  place,  or  come  under  any 
of  our  finite  laws  or  limitations.  The  incarnation  of 
God  in  the  Jesus  of  history  is  not  a  departure  from 
but  a  part  of  the  Divine  order  of  the  world,  the 
supreme  instance  of  a  process  of  Divine  revelation  that 
is  ever  going  on,  such  a  specialising  and  concentrating 
of  the  life  of  God  in  man  as  to  be  in  a  unique  and 
perfect  way  the  Light  in  which  we  see  light — the  Light 
of  the  world. 

The  question,  What  is  God  }  is  the  first  and  the  last 
question  of  religion  ;  and  the  history  of  religion  is  but 
the  story  of  the  rising  and  unfolding  of  the  spiritual  life 
of  man  towards  the  Divine  Reality.  God  is  the  same 
yesterday  and  to-day  and  for  ever  ;  but  man  is  the  child 
of  growth,  and  his  growing  life  means  growing  know- 
ledge. It  is  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  assume  that  the 
term  "  God  "  denotes  a  fixed  conception,  and  that  it  has 
a  definite  and  determined  meaning,  the  same  three 
thousand  years  ago  as  to-day.  On  the  contrary,  its 
meaning  changes  with  every  enlargement  and  deepening 
of  knowledge.  While  no  language  can  fully  tell  what 
this  brief  and  simple  word  "  God  "  is  used  to  signify, 
yet  century  after  century,  as  mankind  rises  into  the  Hfe 


126  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

which  is  life  indeed,  it  is  a  word  into  which  is  being 
poured  a  holier  grandeur  of  meaning,  and  which 
contains  more  and  more  all  the  awe  and  reverence,  all 
the  trust  and  love  and  worship,  of  which  the  human 
heart  is  capable. 

The  fundamental  idea  in  religion  is  the  thought  of 
God.  All  else  is  built  upon  it.  It  is  that  which  in 
every  form  of  religion  determines  all  its  other  beliefs, 
fashions  its  modes  of  worship,  and  most  influences  the 
lives  of  its  adherents.  True  knowledge  of  God  is 
almost  everything  in  a  healthy  religious  life  :  everything 
for  inspiration,  everything  for  strength  and  peace  and 
joy.  There  are  many  religious  questions  for  whose 
answers  we  can  wait  without  any  detriment  to  our 
spiritual  life,  but  the  answer  to  the  question,  What 
is  God  ,''  is  a  present  and  an  imperative  need.  The 
character  of  God  Is  the  foundation  of  all  our  hopes. 

All  religion  is  contained  in  the  one  word  "  God." 
Yet  "  nothing  is  easier,"  as  Cardinal  Newman  once 
said,  "  than  to  use  the  word  God  and  mean  nothing 
by  it."  What  do  we  mean  by  it  ?  What  is  God  to  us  ? 
Jesus  Christ  has  done  very  little  for  any  of  us  if  we 
have  not  got  through  Him  true  knowledge  of  God — 
knowledge  enough  to  banish  all  distrustful  thoughts 
and  feelings,  to  make  us  at  peace  with  things  and  to  fill 
with  high  and  noble  meaning  every  day's  life  and  work 
and  experience.  What  we  believe  about  Christ  is  indeed 
only  important  in  so  far  as  it  helps  us  to  think  about 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  127 

God  as  He  thought,  and  feel  towards  God  as  He  felt, 
and  live  the  life  of  Divine  obedience  that  He  lived.  He 
did  what  He  did  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be  in 
God.  But  as  in  the  years  before  His  Advent,  so  in 
these  Christian  years,  there  is  a  vast  multitude  of  men 
whose  religion  is  as  no  religion  at  all,  powerless  to 
inspire  filial  trust  and  hope,  love  and  obedience, 
because  it  is  not  in  a  real  and  large  sense  the  revela- 
tion of  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Many  of  us  are  more  Jews  than  Christians. 
Along  with  much  else  in  the  elder  religion  the 
Christian  Church  took  over  the  Hebrew  Deity.  It 
was  the  God  of  Abraham  and  Moses  more  than  the 
God  of  Jesus  Christ  whom  our  fathers  worshipped. 
And  is  it  not  strange  how  religious  people  to-day  who 
call  themselves  by  the  name  of  Christ  persistently  turn 
their  backs  upon  the  one  Master  of  Christians  and  go 
searching  for  their  religion  among  the  records  of  an 
earlier  time  ^  Here  and  there  in  the  Old  Testament, 
especially  in  the  Psalms  and  Prophets,  we  find  lofty 
and  grand  utterances  which  almost  anticipate  the  day 
of  Christ,  and  prophesy  of  Him  as  the  first  streaks  of 
morning  light  prophesy  of  the  coming  noon.  But  why 
should  we  prefer  the  light  of  early  dawn  to  the  glory 
of  noontide,  or  descend  from  the  heights  of  vision  to 
which  Jesus  Christ  has  led  the  religious  mind  of  our 
race  to  the  little  hills  on  every  side  ?  To  gain  the 
clearest  and  largest  vision  of   God  we  must  stand  on 


128  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

the  summits  of  the  world's  spiritual  life  and  climb 
their  loftiest  peaks  ;  we  must  train  our  eyes  to  dwell 
on  the  new  grandeur  and  loveliness  in  which  Christ  has 
set  the  thought  of  God. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  we  find  in  the  Gospels 
and  Epistles  very  few  direct  references  to  the  nature  of 
God — to  what  God  is  essentially,  apart  from  the  universe 
and  humanity.  The  teaching  of  our  Lord  is  chiefly 
directed  towards  considering  the  unity  of  God  and  man 
under  the  symbol  of  His  own  Divine  sonship.  But 
three  great  statements  concerning  the  nature  and 
character  of  God  have  come  down  to  us  from  early 
Christendom  :  God  is  Spirit ;  God  is  Light  ;  God  is 
Love.  We  can  hardly  call  these  statements  definitions  ; 
yet  they  are,  perhaps,  the  nearest  approach  to  definitions 
of  God  which  the  human  mind  can  frame  or  comprehend, 
and  in  the  history  of  religious  thought  they  are  unique. 
There  are  no  other  passages  in  Scripture  which  deal  so 
directly  with  the  sacred  reality  of  the  Divine  Being  and 
Life,  none  which  search  so  far  the  deep  things  of  God 
and  admit  us  to  such  an  intimate  knowledge  of  what 
God  is  in  Himself.  Through  them  we  almost  see 
the  Invisible  and  know  the  Incomprehensible.  The 
simplest  mind  cannot  fail  to  understand  their  meanings, 
but  the  profoundest  and  subtlest  cannot  exhaust  them. 
St.  John  says  of  one  of  them,  "  God  is  Light,"  that  it 
was  a  message  received  from  Christ,  and  though  not  in 
the  least  likely  to  be  a  literal  saying,  yet  it  is  plainly 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  129 

what  He  must  have  taught  His  disciples  to  believe — 
a  record  of  St.  John's  impression  of  the  revelation  of  God 
in  the  teaching  and  life  of  his  Master.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  the  third  statement,  "  God  is  Love."  Jesus 
may  never  have  used  the  actual  words,  but  through 
Him  came  that  knowledge  of  God.  It  had  been  always 
true  that  "  God  is  Love,"  but  He  first  made  it  a  reality 
to  the  world.  He  said  as  much  when  He  taught  His 
disciples  to  say  "  Our  Father,"  and  when  He  declared, 
in  virtue  of  the  perfection  of  His  filial  spirit  and  life, 
"  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

Taken  together,  these  three  statements — "  God  is 
Spirit,"  "  God  is  Light,"  "  God  is  Love  " — may  there- 
fore be  justly  regarded  as  the  sum  and  symbol  of  the 
Christian  revelation  of  God,  of  the  Divine  knowledge 
which  makes  of  Christianity  the  absolute  or  universal 
religion  for  all  mankind.  For  what  Renan  said  of  the 
first  may  be  said  of  the  three  :  "  They  are  the  sure  words 
on  which  the  edifice  of  eternal  religion  must  rest." 

In  the  Christian  Church  for  many  centuries  the  doc- 
trine which  gives  to  this  ^  Sunday  its  name  has  been  re- 
garded as  summing  up  the  Christian  knowledge  of  God  ; 
and  it  may,  I  think,  be  so  regarded  when  we  separate 
and  consider  alone  its  inner  thought.  It  would  not 
have  entered  as  it  has  done  into  the  very  soul  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  been  so  rich  in  devotional  and  practical 
power,  if  it  had  not  enshrined  great  truths  and  satisfied 

^  Trinity  Sunday. 

9 


I30  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

genuine  spiritual  aspirations.  Intelligent  and  devout 
Christian  people  have  not  been  nourishing  themselves 
for  ages  on  a  teaching  concerning  God  which  is  at  the 
heart  of  it  irrational  and  false.  "  No  thought,"  says 
Carlyle,  "  that  ever  dwelt  honestly  as  true  in  the  heart 
of  man  but  was  an  honest  insight  into  God's  truth  on 
man's  part  ;  and  has  an  essential  truth  in  it  which  en- 
dures through  all  changes  an  everlasting  possession  for 
us."  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  meant  to  recall 
and  suggest  the  richness  and  fulness  of  the  Divine 
manifestation  in  man  and  his  world  ;  and  after  we  have 
put  aside  all  such  terms  as  "  persons,"  "  triune,"  "  co- 
essential,"  "co-eternal,"  "  co-equal,"  which  belong  not  to 
religion  and  Scripture  but  to  philosophy,  we  can  have 
little  hesitation  in  accepting  the  substance  of  its  teaching. 
There  are  few,  if  any.  Christian  believers  who  do  not 
know  God  as  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  :  not,  of 
course,  in  the  sense  that  they  receive  and  are  certain 
of  an  abstract  doctrine  and  can  use  its  language,  but  in 
the  sense  that  their  religious  experience  corresponds  to 
these  modes  of  God's  revelation  of  His  goodness  and 
love  and  grace. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  to  those  who  understand 
and  use  it  rightly  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  symbol 
and  safeguard  of  a  large  and  progressive  faith  ;  yet  it  has 
been  other  than  a  quickening  influence  to  many  who 
accept  it.  The  knowledge  of  God  which  ceases  to  grow, 
like  all  other  knowledge,  soon  ceases  to  be  knowledge 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  131 

at  ail,  and  degenerates  into  a  lifeless  opinion  or  dogma. 
To  another  class  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been 
simply  a  perplexity  and  bewilderment.  In  the  Church, 
from  early  times,  it  has  also  been  such  a  cause  of  strife 
and  controversy  that  one  has  often  wished  that  Christian 
teachers  had  been  content  with  the  three  great  statements, 
"  God  is  Spirit,"  "  God  is  Light,"  "  God  is  Love," 
and  not  have  added  to  them  much  which  appears  not 
only  to  diiFer  from  them  but  to  contradict  and  deny 
them.  The  great  creeds  and  confessions  of  Chris- 
tendom, in  speaking  about  God,  erred  unquestionably  in 
defining  or  in  trying  to  define  what  is  undefinable,  and 
in  saying  much  more  than  is  really  sayable.  But  we 
can  always  go  back  to  Jesus,  the  one  Master  of 
Christians,  and  to  the  religion  of  Jesus — the  religion 
of  His  life  and  teaching — which  is  both  the  starting- 
point  or  foundation  and  the  test  and  touchstone  of 
historical  Christianity  and  Christian  doctrine.  It  is 
indeed  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  our  religious 
times  that  the  minds  of  so  many  believing  men  are  full 
of  the  thought  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  must  be  dis- 
entangled from  the  after-growth  of  a  religion  about 
Jesus,  or  that  has  Jesus  for  its  central  object  instead  of 
the  God  of  Jesus.  We  are  learning  of  Christ  as  never 
before  ;  seeking  to  see  God  with  His  eyes,  and  making 
more  and  more  our  study  the  Divine  knowledge  which 
received  such  vast  development  through  Him,  and 
which  we  find  summed  up  in  these  three  simple  but 


132  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

sublime  statements  :  God  is  Spirit,  God  is  Light, 
God  is  Love. 

I.  The  statement  "  God  is  Spirit "  is  the  nearest 
approach  to  a  definition  of  Deity  to  be  found  in  the 
Bible.  It  is  a  conception  which  was  not  unknown  in 
pre-Christian  times.  It  was  well  said,  as  by  the  author 
of  the  139th  Psalm,  before  it  was  said  by  Jesus.  The 
great  truths  of  religion  cannot  be  original  in  the  super- 
ficial sense  of  originality.  Intimations  of  them,  more 
or  less  dim  or  clear,  will  be  found  here  and  there,  and 
as  the  ages  move  on  they  will  become  less  dim  and  more 
clear  until  at  last  they  shine  out  in  pure  splendour  in 
the  life  and  teaching  of  some  great  prophet  of  the  race. 
And  it  is  just  this  service  of  realising  the  eternal  truths 
of  religion  and  of  revealing  them  free  from  all  limita- 
tions which  gives  Jesus  His  absolutely  unique  position 
in  the  history  of  religious  thought  and  makes  Him 
so  precious  to  men  everywhere  who  believe.  In  His 
fellowship  our  dim  insights  and  aspirations  shape 
themselves  into  perfect  clearness,  and  in  His  light 
we  see  light. 

God  is  Spirit — not  a  spirit,  as  if  He  were  a  bodiless 
person  or  ghost,  or  one  of  many  spirits  ;  not  even  the 
spirit,  as  though  He  were  the  sovereign  spirit  in  a  world 
of  spirits — but  Spirit,  free  from  all  the  limitations  of 
space  and  time,  eternal  and  infinite,  the  all-surround- 
ing and  indwelling  Life,  transcending  everything  yet 
immanent    in    everything,  the    one  Presence  in  which 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  133 

we  live  and  move,  the  air  we  breathe,  the  light  by 
which  we  see,  the  power  by  which  we  work,  Spirit  of 
our  spirit  and  Spirit  of  the  universe. 

In  the  affirmation  "  God  is  Spirit  "  we  have  perhaps 
the  most  revolutionary  and  evolutionary  truth  in  its 
implication  that  was  ever  announced,  and  so  absolutely 
simple  that  its  simplicity  makes  it  the  final  word  upon 
the  subject.  And  yet  it  was  addressed,  not  to  a  com- 
pany of  philosophers,  but  to  a  humble  woman,  eager 
to  draw  Jesus  into  a  discussion  concerning  the  ancient 
feud  between  Jews  and  Samaritans  touching  the  true 
place  of  worship.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  meaning 
which  the  words  would  convey  to  her  untaught  mind 
was  the  meaning  intended  by  Jesus.  To  such  a  one 
as  she  was  it  must  have  been  a  bold  and  direct  way  of 
saying  that  God  is  everywhere,  free  from  all  bondage  to 
the  outward  and  material,  not  tied  down  to  one  special 
place,  but  filling  all  places  with  His  presence.  It  is 
lofty  teaching  that  God  is  Spirit,  and  they  who  worship 
Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  will  find  Him  everywhere 
near  ;  but  how  natural  and  self-witnessing  it  is  in  its 
character.  Whether  the  temple  be  on  one  mountain  or 
another  mountain  is  a  vain  question  to  debate  if  God 
is  Spirit.  It  was  a  high  yet  not  a  hard  truth  for  the 
Samaritan  woman  to  receive.  The  highest,  profoundest, 
most  inexhaustible  truths  are  not  necessarily  hard  to 
be  understood.  They  breathe  their  meaning  into  the 
receptive  heart.     We  are  led  through  our  own   needs 


134  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

to  the  right  interpretation  and  application  of  them. 
The  emphasis  which  Jesus  placed  upon  this  thought  of 
God  is  well  shown  in  the  order  of  the  original  sentence  : 
"  Spirit  God  is  " — the  most  emphatic  word,  according  to 
the  Greek  usage,  coming  first.  It  cannot  therefore  be 
in  any  merely  negative  sense  that  God  is  Spirit.  He 
is  not  only  invisible,  immaterial,  unlimited,  filling  all 
space  yet  not  bound  by  space,  filling  all  time  yet  not 
of  time,  filling  all  material  things  yet  not  material  in 
any  sense  ;  He  is  Life  and  the  Giver  of  life  ;  not 
unsubstantial,  but  in  the  fullest  sense  real,  having  all 
the  attributes  of  conscious  personal  being — thought, 
feeling,  and  will — perfectly  and  infinitely. 

Let  us  not  cherish  any  thought  of  God  and  His 
ways  which  cannot  be  harmonised  with  the  truth  that 
God  is  Spirit,  and  let  us  not  shrink  from  applying  it 
where  it  needs  to  be  applied.  There  are  no  truths 
more  unrealised  and  unused  than  are  the  great  first 
truths  of  our  religion.  Let  us  but  realise  that  God  is 
Spirit  and  it  will  compel  us  to  drop  all  conceptions  of 
Deity  as  an  isolated  and  insulated  Being,  dwelling  apart 
from  the  universe  and  appearing  now  here  and  now 
there.  Let  us  but  realise  that  God  is  Spirit  and  it  will 
lift  us  out  of  many  a  controversy  into  a  region  where 
our  questions  can  have  no  meaning :  many  crude 
notions  of  spiritual  things  will  pass  away,  and  all  ex- 
ternal and  materialistic  views  of  Creation,  Providence, 
Inspiration,  Revelation,    Incarnation,    Atonement,    the 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  135 

efficacy  of  Sacraments,  and  the  conditions  and  methods 
of  communion  with  God  will  cease  to  be  held. 

On  the  other  hand,  because  God  is  Spirit  let  us  not 
imagine  that  His  Being  and  Presence  must  therefore 
be  vague,  illusory,  or  inaccessible.  The  very  opposite 
is  the  truth.  His  omnipresence  and  providence  can 
only  be  conceived  as  we  realise  that  He  is  Spirit. 
Limit  Him,  divide  Him,  exclude  Him,  confine  Him, 
shut  Him  up  in  any  one  world,  or  temple,  or  rite,  or 
book,  or  man,  and  you  banish  Him  by  these  limitations 
from  boundless  realms  and  from  millions  of  souls. 
Because  He  is  Spirit  He  cannot  be  brought  within  the 
range  of  our  senses.  He  can  only  be  spiritually  dis- 
cerned in  nature  and  in  human  life,  in  the  Bible  and  in 
Christ.  Because  He  is  infinite  Spirit  He  is  by  no 
means  exhausted  in  His  revelations.  He  is  more  than 
any  finite  manifestation  of  Himself — even  the  highest. 
"  My  Father,"  said  Jesus,  "  is  greater  than  I." 

God  is  Spirit,  and  man  is  a  spirit.  This  truth  is  the 
heart  of  religion,  and  its  rational  basis.  It  is  in  practical 
recognition  of  this  truth  that  thousands  of  congregations 
all  over  the  land  are  at  this  moment  seeking  through  the 
symbols  of  prayer  and  praise  to  draw  near  unto  God. 
Worship  is,  indeed,  only  possible  on  the  assumption 
that  there  is  something  in  the  worshipper  akin  to  some- 
thing in  the  Being  who  is  worshipped.  It  is  the  Divine 
in  man  which  seeks  for  fellowship  with  the  Divine 
above  and  beyond  him.     It  is  because  we  are  essentially 


136  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

spiritual  beings  and  God  is  Spirit  that  we  can  commune 
with  Him,  know  His  mind,  discern  His  ways,  enter 
into  His  purposes,  and  receive  His  inspiration. 

"  Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit  can 
meet — 

Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet." 

The  practical  bearing  of  the  statement  that  God 
is  Spirit  is  shown  in  the  requisition  that  the  true 
worshipper  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth, 
that  is,  in  a  way  corresponding  to  the  Divine  Reality 
and  with  the  whole  inner  assent  of  the  soul.  Accord- 
ing to  Jesus,  true  worship  is  the  communion  of  spirit 
with  spirit — the  viewless  human  spirit  with  the  viewless 
Divine  Spirit.  Although  it  seeks  for  itself,  by  a  law  of 
our  nature,  fitting  symbolic  expression,  and  is  helped  by 
such  expression,  yet  it  is  essentially  a  spiritual  act — 
the  human  spirit's  reverence,  submission,  trust,  love, 
adoration,  consecration,  in  the  presence  of  Him  who 
fills  all  space  and  inspires  all  souls,  and  to  whom  all 
hearts  are  open,  all  desires  known,  and  from  whom  no 
secrets  are  hid. 

II.  A  more  profound  and  comprehensive  description 
of  Deity  never  perhaps  fell  from  human  lips  than  this 
statement  :  "  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness 
at  all."  One  feels  that  he  ought  only  to  repeat  it  and 
say  nothing  about  it  in  the  way  of  interpretation  or 
explanation  ;  that  he  ought  to  leave  it  alone  in  its  love- 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  137 

liness  and  grandeur  to  speak  to  each  hearer  in  his  own 
tongue  its  Divine  message. 

Like  all  our  great  words  concerning  God,  Light  is  a 
figure,  yet  a  figure  which  we  feel  brings  us  nearer  the 
Divine  Reality  than  any  more  literal  word  could  possibly 
do.  It  is  rich  in  suggestion,  and  in  meditating  upon 
God  it  is  suggestion  more  than  definition  which  we 
want.  What  in  the  heavens  above  or  the  earth  beneath 
could  serve  better  as  an  emblem  of  Deity  than  light — 
clear,  pure,  beautiful,  and  illimitable  in  its  diffusion  ; 
penetrating,  searching,  and  revealing  in  its  power  ;  silent, 
subtle,  and  beneficent  in  its  influence. 

It  was  a  true  and  lovely  inspiration  which  led  men 
in  pagan  lands  and  times  to  identify  Deity  with  light. 
Apollo,  Zeus,  Jupiter  in  Greece  and  Rome,  with  gods 
of  kindred  name  or  meaning  in  India,  Persia,  and 
Egypt,  all  bear  witness  to  the  power  of  light  to  awaken 
wonder  and  worship  in  human  hearts.  "  Let  there  be 
light,"  said  the  Elohim  of  the  Hebrew  poem — a  com- 
mand right  worthy  to  be  the  first  word  of  Deity.  To 
the  poets  of  all  ages  and  countries  the  dawn  of  day  has 
spoken  of  the  Divine  power  and  glory.  Herder  was 
persuaded  that  the  form  of  the  Genesis  story  of  creation 
must  have  grown  out  of  the  daily  watching  of  the 
coming  of  day,  whose  successive  scenes  follow  much  as 
they  are  pictured  in  that  early  poem  of  a  world's  birth. 
When  we  consider,  speaking  in  terms  of  matter,  that 
the  earth  owes  everything  to  the  sun,  we  cease  to  wonder 


138  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

that  in  far-ofF  days  men,  confounding  God  with  His 
manifestations,  bowed  their  heads  in  adoration  toward 
the  Dawn,  and  that  still  in  many  churches  of  Christen- 
dom, preserving  a  transfigured  reminiscence  of  this 
ancient  sun-worship,  the  altar  is  placed  at  the  east  and 
worship  is  directed  towards  it.  "  The  Lord  God  is  a 
Sun,"  said  the  Hebrew  poet.  "  God  is  Light,"  said 
the  Christian  apostle. 

While  the  statement  "  God  is  Light "  includes  part 
of  the  thought  suggested  by  the  words  "  God  is  Spirit," 
it  adds  to  it  the  thought  of  wisdom  and  truth,  righteous- 
ness and  holiness,  and  their  manifestations.  When  we 
say  that  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all, 
we  affirm  that  He  is  perfectly  and  absolutely  wise, 
that  in  Him  and  in  all  His  ways  there  can  be  no  folly, 
error,  mistake,  uncertainty,  doubt,  deceit,  or  insincerity. 
Men  have  attributed  and  do  still  attribute  foolish  things 
to  God,  but  let  us  ever  bring  all  we  are  taught  or  told 
to  this  supreme  test — God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no 
darkness  at  all.  Better  believe  that  the  greatest  and 
best  men,  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  the  Prophets  and 
Apostles,  were  victims  of  error  and  mistake,  than  hold 
to  anything  that  makes  us  question  and  doubt  the 
perfect  and  infinite  wisdom  of  God.  There  are  some 
things  which  God  cannot  do.  He  cannot  lie.  He 
cannot  deny  Himself.  He  cannot  in  anything  or  any- 
where act  inconsistently  with  His  character.  He  and 
truth  are  one.     He  keepeth  truth  for  ever.     Let  God 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  139 

be  true,  though  every  human  teacher  be   wrong    and 
every  theological  creed  or  system  be  false. 

When  we  say,  "  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no  dark- 
ness at  all,"  we  affirm  that  He  is  perfectly  and  absolutely 
righteous  and  holy,  and  that  therefore  He  cannot 
wrong  anyone  or  be  false  to  anyone.  He  cannot  but 
be,  always  and  everywhere,  righteous  and  holy,  even 
though  we  may  not  be  able  to  see  it,  chiefly  because 
He  is  infinite  and  we  are  finite,  and  are  so  accustomed 
to  estimate  things  as  evil  or  good  according  to  their 
relation  to  local  and  passing  affairs  or  to  our  private 
happiness  and  comfort.  It  sometimes  takes  long  spaces 
to  see  how  just  and  righteous  God  is  in  all  His  ways — 
a  longer  space  sometimes  than  one  man's  brief  span  of 
mortal  days,  whose  experience  may  seem  to  throw 
doubt  upon  it.  In  his  ode  on  the  burial  of  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  Tennyson  says  of  England's  hero — 

"  Whatever  record  leap  to  light 
He  never  shall  be  shamed." 

And  is  that  confidence  too  much   for    us   to    fill    our 
hearts  with  in  regard  to  God  and  all  His  ways  ? 

When  we  say,  "  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no 
darkness  at  all,"  we  not  only  affirm  our  belief  in  Wisdom, 
Truth,  and  Righteousness  without  a  flaw,  but  in  Wisdom, 
Truth,  and  Righteousness  in  the  constant  process  of 
manifestation.  It  is  of  the  nature  and  property  of 
light  to  manifest  itself  and  to  make  manifest.     God  is 


I40  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

in  all  things,  and  all  things  will  reveal  Him  more  and 
more  clearly  and  completely.  We  need  have  no  fear, 
therefore,  of  any  of  the  assured  results  of  investigation 
and  knowledge,  and  as  little  fear  of  the  final  outcome 
of  the  great  social  movements  of  our  time.  Every 
day  the  meaning  of  the  Eternal  will  become  less  and 
less  dim.     The  darkness  is  in  us,  not  in  Him. 

"  God  is  His  own  interpreter, 
And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

The  first  expression  of  the  Divine  will  contained  in 
the  Bible,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  is  symbolic  of  the  Divine 
purpose  and  action  through  all  the  ages.  From  the 
beginning  God  has  been  pouring  forth  His  light  as 
fast  as  man  has  been  able  to  bear  it.  He  is  the  Father 
of  lights.  All  our  lights  are  the  outshining  of  His 
light — light  out  of  Light.  What  we  call  the  light  of 
Nature,  the  light  of  mind,  the  light  of  conscience,  the 
light  of  experience,  is  the  light  of  God.  It  is  the  light 
of  God  which  we  see  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ — light 
without  shadow.  And  Whitsunday  has  just  reminded 
us  that  to-day,  as  yesterday,  the  light  of  God  shines 
direct  into  human  souls,  that  revelation  is  constant  and 
unceasing,  that  God  is  pouring  upon  all  flesh  His 
enlightening  Spirit  and  sending  to  men  countless 
messages  of  wisdom  and  truth. 

The  early  Friends  were  called  "  the  children  of  the 
Light  "  because  they  believed  so  much  in  the  Light  that 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  141 

lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world — in 
God's  direct  communication  of  Himself  to  the  souls  of 
men.  Let  us  be  children  of  the  Light.  Let  us  not  fear 
that  God  will  ever  fail  to  send  forth  His  light  and  His 
truth,  or  leave  us  comfortless.  Let  us  not  fear  to 
follow  the  light  which  is  of  His  gracious  sending  where- 
ever  it  may  lead  us.  Let  us  fear  rather  to  follow  the 
counsels  of  selfish  prudence  and  worldly  expediency. 
To  be  in  true  fellowship  with  God  we  must  live,  not  as 
children  of  the  darkness  and  the  mist,  but  as  children 
of  the  light  and  of  the  day — hating  and  fighting  against, 
in  ourselves  and  in  others,  all  that  is  foolish  and  false 
and  wrong.  Through  you  and  through  me  God  says, 
"  Let  there  be  light."  That  great  and  sublime  word  must 
be  our  cry — the  aspiration,  the  purpose,  the  striving  of 
our  days.  Through  you  and  through  me  God  seeks  to 
enlighten  His  world.  We  must  give  freely  and  unre- 
servedly of  the  truth  and  wisdom  we  have  received, 
fearing  nothing,  concealing  nothing,  grudging  nothing  ; 
letting  our  light  shine  before  men,  that  we  may  be  the 
worthy  sons  and  daughters  of  the  God  who  is  Light, 
and  in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all. 

III.  "God  is  Love  "  is  the  last  and  greatest  of  the 
three  great  words  concerning  God  which  have  come 
down  to  us  from  the  first  Christian  days.  It  is  the 
text  not  only  of  an  ancient  pastoral  letter,  but  of  the 
whole  New  Testament — the  climax  and  crown  of  the 
Christian  teaching  concerning  God.      In  it  is  condensed 


142  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

the  essence  of  Christianity — the  Gospel  by  which 
Christianity  reveals  its  character  as  religion — a  religion 
which  can  meet  and  satisfy  the  deepest  demands  of 
human  nature,  and  will  always  remain  the  religion  of 
men  while  they  develop  immeasurably. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  take  St.  John's  simple 
and  profound  declaration,  "  God  is  Love,"  as  it  stands, 
and  not  attempt  to  diminish  its  significance  by  any  such 
inadequate  interpretations  as  that  Deity  is  benevolent, 
kind,  and  good  to  all  His  creatures.  We  are  not  told 
that  God  loves,  or  is  loving,  but  that  He  is  Love.  His 
love  is  more  than  a  quality — it  is  essence.  All  His 
qualities  are  but  aspects  of  His  love.  If  we  say, 
He  is  angry,  it  is  love  that  is  angry.  His  love  may 
at  times  be  a  consuming  fire  to  burn  out  and 
destroy  sin,  but  it  is  still  love.  "  Wrath  is  a  second 
love,  its  hotter  flame,"  says  a  German  poet.  Every 
relation  God  sustains  to  His  children  is  one  of  love, 
and  we  cannot  think  Him  out  of  that  relation  without 
thinking  Him  out  of  existence.  For  without  love  God 
is  not,  and  only  as  love  exists  in  any  possible  mode  or 
manifestation  can  God  be  said  to  exist.  At  whatever 
point  we  touch  God  we  touch  love.  We  cannot 
escape  from  love,  because  we  cannot  escape  from  God. 
His  omnipresence  is  the  omnipresence  of  love.  Where 
He  is,  there  also  must  be  love — even  in  lowest  hell :  if 
He  is  there.  He  is  still  love.  There  would  be  nothing 
remarkable    in    the    statement    that    God    loves    or    is 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  143 

loving,  but  there  is  something  wonderful  in  the 
declaration  that  He  is  essentially  Love.  We  can 
imagine  infinite  power,  justice,  truth,  wisdom,  and 
holiness,  not  pervaded  and  guided  in  their  movements 
and  manifestations  by  love.  But  it  is  the  very  opposite 
of  this  which  we  are  taught  in  the  text.  Love  is  that 
in  God  which  pervades,  moves,  controls,  directs  all  that 
He  is  and  all  that  He  does.  It  is  His  inmost  nature 
and  essential  life.  It  is  the  great  first  cause,  the  deep 
motive  and  the  final  goal  of  all  His  creative  work. 

God  is  Love  ;  and  love,  wherever  we  find  it  and 
in  whatever  form,  is  of  God,  proceeds  from  and  is  of 
the  same  substance  as  the  Father.  Yes  !  wherever  we 
see  love  we  see  God — His  Real  Presence.  And  if  to 
our  eyes  the  world  of  nature  and  the  world  of  man 
are  not  yet  shaped  to  the  ends  of  love,  still  let  us 
believe  that  whatever  of  love  we  do  see  there  is  of  God  ; 
that  love,  and  not  what  stands  opposed  to  love,  is  the 
one  Divine  thing — that  which  most  truly  reveals  and 
represents  God,  the  one  everlasting  verity.  Let  it  also 
be  borne  in  mind  that  the  things  which  seem  to  deny 
that  God  is  Love  are  not  finalities  but  incidents  in  a 
process  which  is  from  evil  to  good,  from  good  to  better, 
and  from  better  to  best.  They  mean  that  the  world 
is  still  in  the  process  of  making,  not  yet  finished, 
not  yet  answering  perfectly  to  the  Divine  purpose, 
not  yet  completely  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God. 
But  even  in   nature   love  is   the  fulfilling  of   the  law, 


144  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  "  the  goodness  and  the  severity  of  God "  are 
essentially  one.  And  in  our  human  life  we  know  from 
long  experience  that  hardships  and  adversities  are  the 
conditions  of  a  noble  development,  and  that  the  loss  and 
suffering  which  follow  transgression  are  but  the  stern 
side  of  Love,  and  the  sign  and  proof  that  God  is 
working  to  secure  the  greatest  possible  blessing  to  His 
creation  and  His  children. 

Yes  !  love  is  of  God — all  creature  love  and  all 
human  love — for  God  is  Love.  There  must  be  love 
in  God,  or  there  would  be  no  love  in  the  world,  no 
pity  in  the  heart  of  man,  no  tenderness  of  motherhood, 
no  gentleness  in  the  strong  ;  for  in  the  image  of  God 
man  is  made,  and  in  God  he  lives  and  moves  and  has 
his  being.  All  human  love  is  consubstantial  with  the 
love  of  God.  It  is  Divinity  in  humanity.  Jesus  Christ 
not  only  taught  the  world  that  God  is  Love,  but  He 
revealed  it  in  His  life.  His  love  was  His  Father's 
love,  and  His  sacrifice  not  an  act  exceptional  or 
contrary  to  the  Divine  Spirit  but  its  manifestation  and 
effect.  From  nature  to  man,  from  man  to  highest 
man,  from  the  brute's  affection  for  her  offspring  to 
the  human  father's  long-suifering  care  and  the  mother's 
yearning  tenderness,  up  to  the  breaking  heart  of  Christ 
on  the  Cross — it  is  all  the  revelation  of  a  God  whose 
very  life  is  love,  whose  very  essence,  energy,  and  glory 
consist  in  pouring  Himself  forth,  in  giving  Himself 
away  for  His  creatures  and  His  children. 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  145 

God  is  Love.  Do  we  believe  it  ?  It  is,  I  think, 
one  of  the  saddest  things  in  Christian  history  that  this 
truth  of  truths  has  been  practically  so  disbelieved  and 
disowned.  It  is  hardly  to  be  found  either  in  the  letter 
or  substance  of  the  ancient  creeds.  Even  the  Reforma- 
tion, that  memorable  awakening  of  the  human  mind 
and  conscience,  did  not  restore  it.  It  is  one  of  the 
terribly  strange  and  serious  omissions  of  the  West- 
minster Confession  of  Faith.  And  although  a  great 
change  is  taking  place  around  us,  and  we  are  witnessing 
what  is  like  a  second  birth  of  Christianity,  yet  the 
Christian  world  is  still  far  enough  away  from  the  simple 
creed  that  God  is  Love,  and  the  men  are  but  few  who 
receive  its  teaching  in  all  its  fulness. 

Let  us  who  are  gathered  here  seek  to  penetrate  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  Christian  message  concerning 
God.  Let  the  mind  of  Christ  be  our  mind.  Let  us, 
as  we  commune  with  Him  who  is  the  best  teacher  of 
His  own  religion,  catch  a  new  and  greater  devotion  to 
these  ideal  truths — God  is  Spirit,  God  is  Light,  God  is 
Love.  Let  us  in  word  and  deed  bear  witness  to  them. 
Let  us  not  give  our  moral  influence  to  conceptions  of 
God  and  His  ways  which  we  cannot  reconcile  with 
them.  The  laity  as  well  as  the  clergy  must  be  awake 
to  their  responsibility  to  truth,  and  to  the  part  they 
have  to  take  in  delivering  Christendom  from  thoughts 
of  God  which  still  hide  from  men  the  true  glory  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ. 

10 


146  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

God  is  Spirit,  God  is  Light,  God  is  Love — this  is 
our  Gospel.  If  we  get  this  into  our  mind  and  heart, 
all  else  that  we  need  to  know  will  follow  in  its  right 
order.  Without  this  first,  all  else  will  be  confusion, 
both  in  our  personal  lives  and  in  the  life  of  the  Christian 
community.^  Let  us  also  see  in  these  three  great 
statements,  not  only  the  revelation  of  God,  but  the 
revelation  of  human  character  and  duty.  It  was  a 
pagan  teacher  who  said  that  he  who  would  please  God 
must  be  like  God — an  echo  or  anticipation  of  the  more 
familiar  words,  "  Be  ye  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect." 

We  believe  that  God  is  Spirit ;  then,  let  us  worship 
in  the  spirit  and  walk  in  the  spirit,  and  put  out  of  our 
lives  all  unspiritual  things. 

We  believe  that  God  is  Light ;  then,  let  us  be  children 
of  the  light,  following  whatsoever  things  are  honest 
and  true,  just  and  holy. 

We  believe  that  God  is  Love  ;  then,  let  us  live  the 
life  of  love,  and  seek  to  diffuse  love  wherever  we  go. 

1  "  There  is  a  Catholic  belief  and  a  Catholic  morality  broad  and 
comprehensive  enough  to  form  the  basis  of  a  Catholic  Church  and  of 
a  true  Christian  Unity.  That  belief  is — that  God  is  Light  and  God 
is  Love.  That  morality  is  that  we  love  Him  supremely  and  each  other 
as  ourselves.  That  Church  is  composed  of  all  who,  in  the  strength 
of  this  belief,  are  habitually  striving  to  practise  this  morality.  That 
Unity  is  effected,  not  by  any  external  conformities,  but  by  the  same 
interior  spirit  and  hidden  life  manifesting  itself  in  the  members  of  all 
Christian  communities,  by  acts  of  devotion,  of  humility,  of  self-sacrifice, 
of  temperance,  of  justice,  of  truth,  of  peace," — Sir  James  Stephen. 


THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  147 

Dante  said  of  Beatrice,  "  Whenever  she  appeared  before 
me  I  had  no  enemy  left  on  earth  ;  the  flame  of  charity 
kindled  within  me  and  caused  me  to  forgive  all 
whoever  had  offended  me."  Our  fellowship  with  God, 
if  it  is  a  reality  and  not  a  delusion,  must  be  having  a 
like  influence  upon  us,  making  us  to  dwell  in  love- — 
in  charity  and  peace  with  all  mankind.  And  now  unto 
God,  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Eternal  Spirit,  the  Eternal  Light,  the  Eternal  Love, 
be  all  praise  and  glory,  the  trust,  love,  obedience, 
and  worship  of  all  His  children,  world  without  end. 
Amen. 


INTO  THY  HANDS 

"  And  when  Jesus  had  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  He  said,  Father, 
into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit." — Luke  xxiii.  46, 

There  is  much  that  is  pathetic  and  suggestive  in  the 
thought  that  the  words  of  Jesus  breathed  out  in  the 
hour  of  His  departure  were  part  of  the  daily  prayer 
which  Hebrew  mothers  were  accustomed  to  teach  their 
children  when  lying  down  to  sleep  at  night.  So  our 
Lord's  last  utterance  when  He  hung  upon  the  Cross 
was  probably  the  words  which  He  had  been  taught  to 
say  in  infancy  by  Mary  His  mother  as  His  evening 
prayer.  With  His  child-prayer  trembling  upon  His 
lips  He  passed  away  from  earth. 

The  Psalms  had  been  the  liturgy  of  His  worship — 
His  book  of  devotion,  and  from  the  Psalms  in  all  the 
critical  moments  of  His  life  He  drew  the  words  which 
expressed  His  own  trust  and  hope.  In  all  but  its  first 
word  the  language  of  His  final  prayer  is  taken  from 
the  thirty-first  Psalm.  In  the  Psalm  the  prayer  has 
reference  to  life  ;   it  is  the  committal  of  the  spirit  in 

148 


INTO  THY  HANDS  149 

the  midst  of  tumult  and  danger  to  the  merciful  and 
faithful  keeping  of  One  able  to  protect  and  deliver. 
On  the  Cross,  in  the  midst  of  darkness  and  anguish, 
it  is  used  as  the  expression  of  life's  last  act  of  renuncia- 
tion— the  surrender  of  the  departing  spirit  to  God. 
It  is  not  a  cry  like  the  psalmist's,  to  be  preserved  from 
death,  but  a  cry  to  be  preserved  through  death  unto 
everlasting  life. 

But  Jesus  made  the  ancient  prayer  His  own — made 
it  personal,  and  also  transformed  it  into  a  prayer  of 
filial  and  most  tender  confidence  by  substituting  the 
word  "  Father  "  for  the  original  "  O  Lord,  Thou  God 
of  truth."  Do  we  not  find  in  the  simple  religion  of 
the  Book  of  Psalms,  read  and  interpreted  in  the  light 
of  the  filial  faith  and  spirit  of  Jesus,  all  that  we  require 
for  the  great  practical  needs  of  life  and  death  ?  Do  we 
not  find  there  what  De  Quincey  called  "  those  grand 
catholic  feelings  which  belong  to  the  grand  catholic 
situations  of  life  in  all  its  stages "  .''  In  the  New 
Testament  we  find  little  which  goes  far  beyond  what 
Hebrew  poets  and  prophets  said  in  their  most  in- 
spired moments  and  moods.  They  anticipated  Christ's 
day  and  were  glad.  "  All  the  fathers,"  said  the 
apostle,  "  drank  of  the  same  spiritual  Rock  of  which 
we  drink."  The  message  of  Jesus  is  essentially  their 
message,  but  with  a  larger  thought  of  God  and  an 
accent  of  diviner  trust  and  hope.  He  said  what  they 
had  been  longing  to  feel  and  trying  to  say.     In  His 


I50  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

Gospel  we  find  all  that  God  had  been  teaching  them 
carried  forward  to  more  perfect  form. 

"  Father."  This  is  pre-eminently  the  word  of  Jesus  ; 
His  one  name  for  God,  the  one  note  to  which  all  His 
music  was  attuned,  the  central  persuasion  and  confi- 
dence of  His  soul,  the  key  to  His  life,  the  first  and 
the  last  in  His  teaching,  the  soul  of  His  religion,  the 
symbol  of  His  whole  theology.  It  is  the  one  recorded 
word  of  His  youth  :  "  Wist  ye  not  I  must  be  about 
My  Father's  business  ? "  It  was  the  word  from  heaven 
heard  in  His  heart  at  the  opening  of  His  public  career 
— a  crisis  marked  by  a  new  disclosure  and  realisation 
of  His  Sonship  to  God.  It  was  the  first  word  of  the 
prayer  He  taught  His  disciples  ;  the  word  with  which 
He  accepted  the  inevitable  in  Gethsemane  ;  the  first 
word  from  the  Cross,  and  the  last  before  "  the  deep, 
vast  speechlessness  of  death."  It  was  the  ruling  passion 
of  His  life — the  passion  which  had  moved  Him  to  in- 
tense and  tireless  toil  and  sacrifice,  and  sustained  Him 
amidst  the  temptations  of  manhood — which  strengthened 
Him  in  the  hour  of  His  final  conflict  and  calmed  Him 
with  its  most  tranquil  assurance.  It  was  "  Father  "  at 
the  beginning  ;  "  Father  "  all  through  the  stormy  years 
that  led  to  the  Cross  ;  "  Father "  when  He  felt  His 
hour  was  come,  and  troubled  in  spirit  He  cried, 
"  What  shall  I  say  .''  "  and  it  was  "  Father  "  at  the  end. 
"  I  live,"  He  once  said,  "  by  the  Father,"  and  so  He 
died  trusting  in  the  Father.     The  commending  of  His 


INTO  THY  HANDS  151 

spirit  at  the  last  moment  to  His  Father  was  but  the 
summing  up  of  what  He  had  been  doing  all  His  life. 
He  breathed  out  the  whole  spirit  of  His  life  in  that 
prayer.  All  His  days  He  had  been  offering  Himself 
to  His  Father  to  enjoy  and  to  suffer,  to  do  and  to 
bear  ;  and  so  in  death,  and  beyond  death.  He  gives 
Himself  into  the  hands  of  His  Father. 

It  was  but  a  little  while  before  that  He  had  been 
crying,  "  Why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?  " — using  the 
words  of  another  psalm  of  His  childhood  to  express 
His  mood  of  feeling  ;  but  it  was  only  as  the  shadow  of 
a  cloud  passing  over  the  sun,  dimming  for  an  instant 
the  light.  How  quickly  He  recovered  Himself  to  a 
state  of  filial  trust  !  How  soon  the  cry  of  desolation 
was  exchanged  for  this  sublime  declaration  of  spiritual 
confidence,  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My 
spirit  !  "  The  faith  of  the  Hebrew  psalmist  was  indeed 
fulfilled — carried  out  to  its  perfection — in  the  beloved 
Son  who  saw  His  Father  everywhere  ;  who  loved  to 
work  His  Father's  works  ;  who  drank  His  Gethsemane 
cup  as  His  Father's  will,  and  who  at  the  last,  like  a 
tired  child  falling  asleep,  committed  Himself  to  His 
Father's  care  ere  He  closed  His  eyes  on  the  light  of  life. 
"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit." 
This  prayer  of  Jesus  has  been  echoed  again  and  again 
by  generations  of  disciples  who  have  lived  and  died  in 
His  faith  and  spirit.  Experience  shows,  and  it  matters 
little  how  we  explain  it,  that  Jesus  helps  all  who  believe 


152  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

in  Him  to  believe  in  His  Father.  His  mediation  is 
not  obstruction  in  the  soul's  way  to  God,  but  a  means 
of  direct  and  dear  communion.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
we  have  truly  found  Jesus  if  in  finding  Him  we  have 
not  also  found  the  Father.  The  Father  was  everything 
to  Jesus,  and  He  is  everything  to  those  who  stand  in 
the  inner  circle  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  We  go  to 
Him,  and  at  once  He  would  lead  us  past  Himself  to 
His  Father.  We  tarry  in  His  company,  and  in  the 
depths  of  His  fellowship  we  find  we  are  in  fellowship 
with  His  Father,  with  no  one,  not  even  Himself, 
between.  The  name  in  which  He  prayed  at  the  last 
that  His  followers  might  be  kept,  and  in  which  alone 
there  is  security  and  unity,  was  not  His  own,  but  His 
Father's  :  "  Holy  Father,  keep  them  in  Thy  Name." 
The  perfect  and  final  action  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  on 
the  spirits  of  men  is  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  prayer  : 
"  As  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  even  as  We  are  " — children  with  Father, 
related  to  God,  not  in  measure,  but  in  kind,  as  was  the 
blessed  Son  whose  glory  it  was  to  have  no  glory  of  His 
own,  to  love,  trust  and  obey  His  Father  through  life 
and  unto  death. 

We  rarely  realise  as  we  ought  how  entirely  we  owe 
to  Jesus  the  fatherly  idea  of  God  ;  how  that  mystery 
of  Fatherhood,  hidden  from  ages  and  generations,  was 
first  revealed  through  Him.  St.  Paul  does  but  sum 
up   the   true   result  of   the  mission  and  mediation  of 


INTO  THY  HANDS  153 

Christ  when  he  says  :  "  Through  Him  we  have  access 
by  one  spirit  unto  the  Father."  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  phrase,  "  The  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  was  continually  upon  the  lips  of  the  apostles. 
This  is  the  final  utterance  of  the  religion  of  the  New 
Testament  for  which  all  else  is  preliminary  and  pro- 
visional :  "  Then  shall  He  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to 
God,  even  the  Father." 

"  When  ye  pray,  say.  Father."  And  what  name  can 
ever  be  so  full  of  meaning  as  this  of  Father  when 
spoken  by  Jesus  .''  Of  all  the  names  for  God  it  is  the 
most  personal,  the  most  human,  the  most  lovely,  the 
most  helpful  —  the  Name  that  is  above  every  name. 
While  it  is  true  that  its  use  is  not  peculiar  to  Jesus, 
it  is  also  true  that  Jesus  and  the  religion  of  Jesus  have 
put  such  meaning  and  power  into  it,  as  to  make  it  a 
new  name  for  God.  Something  dimly  like  it  may  be 
found  in  the  literature  of  Pagan  religions,  but  of  Gentile 
writings  Jesus  probably  knew  nothing.  The  most 
advanced  saints  and  teachers  of  Israel  could  at  the 
most  say,  "  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,"  or 
"  doubtless.  Thou  art  our  Father."  It  was  the  name 
that  was  needed  to  give  full  and  culminating  expression 
to  the  Hebrew  religious  spirit  at  its  best,  but  it  was  in 
Jesus'  revelation  of  God  it  first  stood  out  in  clear  relief 
as  the  name  that  most  perfectly  expressed  God's  nature 
and  relation  to  men.  Our  Christian  religion  has,  no 
doubt,  its  roots  in  principles  and  sentiments  which  other 


154  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

religions  have  in  some  degree  shared  ;  but  as  a  distinct 
religion  it  has  its  source  in  the  consciousness  and 
experience  of  Jesus — in  His  personal  realisation  of  the 
filial  relation  and  attitude  to  God.  Jesus  did  not  find 
the  Father  in  the  philosophies  and  literatures  of  the 
world,  but  in  His  own  life.  When  we  hear  Him  say 
"  Father,"  we  know  it  to  be  no  mere  echo  of  a  word 
caught  from  others,  but  the  voice  not  to  be  mistaken 
of  a  Son  uttering  the  name.  He  knew  the  Father 
through  the  communion  which  we  find  expressed  in  that 
mystical  yet  luminous  and  suggestive  sentence  :  "  No 
man  knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom- 
soever the  Son  will  reveal  Him."  It  is  only  through 
sonship,  through  the  awakened  and  developed  sense  of 
our  kindred  to  God,  that  we  find  Him  in  all  His 
graciousness  and  fatherliness,  and  our  dim  and  wavering 
thought  gradually  becomes  a  spiritual  certainty  and  an 
inalienable  possession.  It  is  only  the  filial  spirit  that 
reveals  God  to  man  as  Father  ;  and  therefore,  He 
who  had  that  spirit  without  measure  working  in  His 
affections  and  will  and  life,  felt  His  every  word  and  act 
to  come,  not  from  Himself,  but  from  the  Father  in 
Him,  and  could  say  without  arrogance,  "  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  God  was  manifest  in 
Christ — even  as  an  earthly  father  is  manifest  in  the  son 
who  thinks  and  feels,  judges  and  acts  just  like  him, 
from  an  inner  spirit  like  his  own.  In  the  life  He 
lived,  as  in  His  deepest  consciousness,  Jesus  knew  and 


INTO  THY  HANDS  155 

declared  Himself  to  be,  not  Father  but  Son — the  Son 
whose  strength  and  joy  it  was  to  live  in  the  Father,  and 
whose  mission  it  was  to  reveal  to  men  the  Father,  not 
only  in  His  words,  but  in  His  character  and  works. 
Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  making  the  sonship  of  Christ 
too  glorious  and  divine — only  let  us  bear  ever  in  mind 
that  it  is  a  sonship  which  the  Gospels  and  Epistles 
declare  ;  that  the  Divinity  of  Christ  is  the  Divinity,  not 
of  Fatherhood  but  of  Sonship. 

By  spiritual  likeness  alone  can  God  be  known  with 
that  knowledge  which  is  eternal  life  ;  and  yet  of  God — 
of  His  fatherly  justice,  love,  goodness  and  care,  all  our 
dearest  and  best  human  relationships  are  the  more  or 
less  faint  reflections.  When  they  approach  what  they 
ought  to  be,  when  they  are  rich  in  the  truth  and  good- 
ness which  ought  to  fill  them,  they  tend  to  make  clear 
and  bright  our  thoughts  of  Divine  realities,  and  furnish 
hints  and  prophecies  of  those  religious  sentiments  which 
are  evoked  in  the  later  years  of  life  by  our  practical 
experience  and  knowledge  of  God.  And  must  not 
Jesus  Himself  have  learned  much  in  the  same  way  ? 
Must  not  His  own  experience  of  the  humanities  which 
are  also  divinities  have  shaped  and  coloured  largely  His 
teaching  .'*  We  may  be  sure  that  the  name  "  Father  " 
would  not  have  been  so  often  on  His  lips  as  the  best 
symbol  and  expression  of  God's  nature  and  relation  to 
men,  and  with  such  an  accent,  too,  of  tenderness,  had 
not  His  own  experience  in  the  home  at  Nazareth  led 


156  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Him  to  associate  fatherhood  with  thoughts  of  beauty 
and  sweetness  and  joy.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  Jesus 
made  the  human  home  and  its  relationships  the  sign 
and  symbol  of  the  spiritual  order  in  which  we  live — 
the  great  interpreter  of  God  and  the  universe.  He 
with  whom  we  have  to  do  cannot  by  searching  be  found 
out  unto  perfection,  but  this,  Jesus  said,  is  the  form  in 
which  we  may  most  truly  think  of  Him  and  His  rela- 
tions to  men — a  Father  living  and  working  with  His 
children.  But  the  Fatherhood  of  God  is  no  merely 
figurative  paternity — an  image  borrowed  from  our 
earthly  relations  to  express  in  terms  which  our  experi- 
ence can  understand  the  goodness  of  the  Eternal.  It 
is  a  Divine  image.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  is,  as  St. 
Paul  said,  the  archetypal  Fatherhood.  It  is  after  it 
that  all  paternity  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is  named. 

"  All  fathers  learn  their  craft  from  Thee  ; 
All  loves  are  shadows  cast 
By  the  beautiful,  eternal  hills 
Of  Thine  unbeginning  past." 

To  some  minds  the  word  "  Father  "  as  a  name  for 
Deity  suggests  either  a  theological  and  not  a  real  rela- 
tionship— the  relation  of  the  First  Person  of  a  philoso- 
phical Trinity  to  the  Second,  or  the  relation  of  God  to 
Christian  believers  only  ;  but  as  it  was  used  by  Jesus  it 
is  the  word  of  the  heart,  and  it  expresses  the  relation  of 
God  to  the  whole  world  of  souls.  The  truly  Christian 
use  of  the  word  is  the  large  human  use  of  it.     Breathed 


INTO  THY  HANDS  157 

from  the  lips  of  Jesus  it  is  the  voice  of  humanity,  and  any- 
narrower  use  of  it  in  His  name  dishonours  Him.  "We 
are  God's  by  adoption,"  we  are  told.  But  God  has  no 
need  to  adopt  His  own  children.  To  remember  in  the 
far  country  whose  son  he  was,  to  realise  it,  was  the  one 
redeeming  thought  for  the  prodigal.  Man  may  or  may 
not  fulfil  the  idea  of  his  Divine  sonship  ;  he  may  be 
ignorant  that  he  is  the  son  of  God,  or  he  may  be  false 
to  the  relationship  when  it  is  known  ;  but  God  is 
above  and  beyond  all  change,  without  variableness  or 
the  shadow  of  a  turning  ;  He  cannot  deny  Himself 
whatever  happens.  We  may  become  more  truly  His 
children,  more  trustful  and  obedient,  but  He  cannot 
become  more  truly  our  Father.  Religion  may  reveal 
the  fact,  but  the  fact  was  before,  and  is  independent  of, 
the  revelation.  Both  in  word  and  deed  Jesus  tells  us 
that  this  is  the  fact  of  facts  concerning  our  humanity. 
Man,  the  son  of  God,  is  the  Christian  idea  of  man. 
Jesus  Himself  is  indeed  the  best  proof  that  God  is  and 
ever  was  our  Father,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without 
end.  Not  even  in  the  most  exalted  moments  of  Divine 
communion  did  He  separate  Himself  from  men — in 
the  meanest  of  whom  He  always  saw  the  promise  and 
potency  of  filial  perfection.  It  was  the  purpose  of 
His  life  to  bring  men  to  the  realisation  of  God  as 
their  Father,  and  to  quicken  in  them  the  sense  and 
spirit  of  their  filial  relation  to  the  Eternal.  This  is 
the  distinctively  Christian  experience.     In  Jesus  Christ 


158  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

we  behold  that  moment  in  the  spiritual  development 
of  humanity  at  which  man  comes  into  conscious  filial 
communion  with  God.  Whatever  fore-gleams  or 
suggestions  of  it  there  may  have  been  previously  in  the 
experience  of  good  and  devout  men,  it  came  forth  into 
distinct  and  independent  existence  for  the  first  time  in 
Jesus.  He  is  the  first-born  among  many  brethren. 
To  as  many  as  receive  Him  He  gives  power  to  become 
in  character  what  they  are  already  by  nature — the  sons 
of  God  !  "  The  glory  which  Thou  givest  Me  I  give 
to  them,  that  we  may  all  be  one." 

The  Fatherhood  of  God,  you  will  see,  is  not  a  little 
or  a  subordinate  truth.  It  is  one  compared  with  which 
all  other  thoughts  of  God  shrink  and  fade.  Jesus  put 
it  at  the  centre  of  His  religion.  It  is  the  symbol  of 
all  that  is  most  original  in  His  contribution  to  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  mankind,  the  summary  of  all 
He  had  to  teach,  the  heart  of  His  Gospel,  His  secret 
concerning  Divine  and  human  being.  It  is  no  small 
thing,  therefore,  to  say  of  our  age  that  it  has  recovered 
this  long-lost  thought  of  God  in  all  its  reality  ;  that 
this  thought  has  so  flashed  out  on  the  modern  religious 
mind  that  it  can  never  again  be  obscured,  that  we  are 
more  and  more  rejoicing  in  its  light,  and  experiencing 
its  elevating  and  inspiring  influence.  How  much  it 
means  !     What  issues  it  opens  up  ! 

When  we  think  of  God  under  the  name  of  Father, 
the  first  thought  which  meets  us  is  that  of  origin  and 


INTO  THY  HANDS  159 

source.  We  come  forth  from  God.  We  have  our 
origin  in  His  Fatherhood,  with  all  its  thought  and  labour 
and  sacrifice.  He  is  the  source  of  our  spiritual  being, 
the  very  Father  of  our  spirits.  Our  spiritual  affections 
and  powers  are  in  their  essential  quality  representative 
of  what  He  is  in  His  infinitude,  and  as  we  live  in  them 
and  by  them  we  grow  in  His  knowledge — we  know  Him 
through  the  law  of  affinity.  To  have  the  Son  in  us  is 
to  find  the  Father  in  God — to  know  God  as  Jesus  knew 
Him.  It  is  the  spiritual  and  filial  life  in  man  which 
reveals  and  makes  real  the  heavenly  Fatherhood,  and 
makes  it  possible  for  man  by  reason  of  this  community 
of  being  to  fairly  judge  thoughts  and  deeds  ascribed 
to  God  by  their  correspondence  to  the  highest  and  best 
in  human  experience.  Righteousness  and  goodness  in 
their  holiest  significance  and  largest  relations  cannot, 
we  are  persuaded,  be  other  than  the  perfection  and 
infinite  extension  of  those  thoughts  and  ways  of  God 
which  we  find  in  our  own  minds  and  hearts.  There 
are  not  two  kinds  of  goodness  in  the  universe,  but  one 
Eternal  Goodness  in  all,  through  all,  and  above  all. 
And  it  is  because  God  is  so  essentially  related  to 
man,  not  merely  our  Creator  but  our  Father,  that  He 
can  know  and  understand  us  entirely  and  perfectly  ;  be 
touched  with  a  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  give  to  us  a 
sympathy  kindred  to  our  own,  and  a  help  that  is  equal 
to  all  our  needs. 

The    conception    of    God  as  Father  carries  with  it, 


i6o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

secondly,  the  thought  of  perfect  love  and  care,  con- 
tinuous and  friendly  providence,  wise  and  impartial 
discipline.  Jesus  taught  men  to  connect  with  God 
and  His  rule  all  their  knowledge  of  fatherhood,  all 
that  belongs  of  necessity  to  the  character  and  duty  of 
a  father.  "  If  ye  then  being  evil,  know  how  to  give 
good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much  more  shall 
your  heavenly  Father."  He  is  no  true  father  who  does 
not  love  his  children,  and  He  is  not  the  perfect  and 
infinite  Father  who  does  not  love  His  children  with  an 
absolutely  pure,  unwearying,  inalienable,  inexhaustible 
love.  We  cannot  therefore  impute  hate  to  God — not 
even  toward  the  most  rebellious  and  wicked  of  His 
children.  He  can  do  nothing  in  what  an  old  divine 
called  His  "official  capacity" — that  is,  contrary  to  His 
character  as  Infinite  Goodness  and  Fatherhood.  What 
we  call  His  justice  and  His  wrath  are  great  moral 
realities,  yet  they  are  but  aspects  or  manifestations  of 
His  love — His  love  set  against  all  evil-doing  to  destroy 
it.  He  is  always  the  Father,  even  when  He  is  judging 
and  punishing  us.  While  we  must  not  believe  anything 
concerning  God  which  does  not  harmonise  with  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  there  is  no  ground  for  easy  optimism  on  our 
part.  The  Father  of  Jesus  is  the  Righteous  Father. 
But  His  justice  is  never  vindictive  :  it  is  always  dis- 
ciplinary, part  of  that  great  system  of  love  and  help 
and  redemption  which  we  connect  with  His  revelation 
to  the  world  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     The  Divine 


INTO  THY  HANDS  i6i 

Providence  may  appear  at  times  as  if  it  were  only  power 
and  not  love,  and  so  God  a  Ruler  only  and  not  the 
Father,  but  a  deeper  and  more  spiritual  insight  justifies 
after  all  our  Christian  trust.  The  individual,  we  find, 
is  cared  for  in  the  end  as  well  as  the  race,  and  God's 
perfect  care,  though  it  allows  between  the  lines  large 
space  for  man's  free  agency,  is  yet  unbaffled  and  un- 
thwarted  by  human  ignorance  and  wilfulness.  What 
we  see  is  the  omnipresent  Fatherly  Spirit  controlling  all 
things  and  making  them  contribute  to  the  large  and 
final  good  of  all  and  each. 

The  habitual  reference  of  Jesus  in  His  teaching,  in 
His  personal  prayers,  and  in  every  event  of  life  which 
concerned  Him,  to  God  as  Father — "  My  Father," 
"  your  Father  " — opened  a  new  world  to  men  and  gradu- 
ally changed  their  attitude  toward  everything,  toward 
the  physical  and  the  spiritual  universe,  toward  life  and 
its  experiences,  toward  death  and  the  hereafter.  "  We 
have  not  received  the  spirit  of  fear,"  writes  St.  Paul, 
"  but  the  spirit  of  sonship  whereby  we  cry.  Father." 

I.  The  faith  of  Jesus  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
rightly  and  vitally  held,  affects  the  feelings  of  man 
towards  the  physical  universe,  making  him  dwell  in  it 
no  longer  as  a  stranger  or  a  slave,  but  as  a  child  in  his 
Father's  house.  It  inspires  a  home-like  feeling  from 
which  we  cannot  escape  even  when  most  conscious  of 
the    unknown    that    stretches    around  and  beyond  us. 

We  look  out  upon  this  vast  universe,  and  we  feel  that 

II 


1 62  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

in  the  depths  of  our  life  we  are  one  with  Him  who  is 
its  Creator,  its  quickening  Spirit,  its  Ruler  and  Guide. 
Having  this  feeling  we  have  confidence  in  things — 
confidence  that  all  things  are  good,  or  are  making  for 
good.  The  mighty  forces  and  agencies  before  which 
we  and  our  fathers  in  our  ignorance  and  fear  once 
trembled,  we  are  now  persuaded  are  the  servants  of 
wisdom  and  love — mighty  powers  indeed,  but  no  longer 
blind  or  brutal.  The  immensity  and  magnificence  by 
which  we  were  once  appalled  are  seen  to  be  the  glory 
of  our  Father.  Our  spirits  shrink  and  stoop  no  longer. 
They  may  still  be  awed,  but  it  is  a  glad  awe.  We 
know  that  God  is  not  outside  the  universe,  but  every- 
where within  it,  its  sustaining  and  directing  force — so 
in  it  as  to  make  all  its  ultimate  tendencies  and  ends 
good.  It  is  a  travesty  of  the  real  universe  that  excites 
fear.  We  are  adding  to  our  faith,  knowledge  ;  and 
knowledge  as  it  grows  from  more  to  more  does  not 
deepen  but  removes  our  suspicion  of  things.  We  are 
still  moving  amid  unfinished  things  and  walking  more 
by  faith  than  by  sight,  but  we  are  beginning  to  see  that 
the  Fatherhood  of  God  has  its  evidence  in  all  Nature, 
and  that  the  poet's  speech  about  passionless  and  pitiless 
forces  can  only  be  excused  as  belonging  to  such  poetry 
as  intentionally  reduces  to  the  immediate  purposes  of 
the  writer  the  wider  operations  of  the  universe.  We 
are  beginning  to  see  and  to  say  that  "  Law  is  Love," 
and  to  sing  with  the  understanding  of  the  mercies  of 


INTO  THY  HANDS  163 

judgment  ;  for  we  are  discovering  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  in  the  order  of  the  world  as  evil — save  to 
the  narrow  outlook.  It  was  the  confidence  of  Jesus 
that  all  the  infinite  forces  acting  upon  the  world  are  in 
the  hands  of  a  Father  who  cannot  allow  them  to  do  any 
real  spiritual  harm  to  any  of  His  children — although 
He  is  constantly  controlling  and  using  them  for  larger 
ends  than  they  can  perceive  or  understand.  We  know 
only  in  part,  but  we  have  already  sufficient  grounds  in 
knowledge  for  believing  that  there  is  at  the  heart  of 
things  all  the  goodness  we  sum  up  and  express  in  the 
name  "  Father,"  and  infinitely  more.  The  trusts  of 
Jesus  are  indeed  anticipations  of  much  that  modern 
knowledge  is  slowly  declaring.  To  Him  Nature  was 
no  ruin  and  no  empire  of  caprice  or  cruelty,  but  a  realm 
of  Divine  order  and  blessing.  "  Not  a  sparrow  shall 
fall  to  the  ground  without  your  Father."  The  hapless 
bird  does  indeed  fall,  but  somehow  even  in  its  falling 
the  Divine  care  goes  with  it.  And,  think  you,  does 
that  same  merciful  and  faithful  care  ever  forget  or  for- 
sake any  victim  of  wind,  or  earthquake,  or  avalanche  ? 
The  other  summer,  far  up  among  the  Alps,  I  stood  at 
the  grave  of  one  who  perished  in  a  mountain  storm, 
and  the  rude  tombstone  had  this  inscription  in  German  : 
"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  Let 
us  not  dare  to  talk  of  escapes  from  calamity  and  death 
as  if  they  alone  were  providential.  Our  feet  may  not 
be    preserved    from    falling,  but    when    and    wherever 


1 64  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

we  fall  it  is  into  our  Father's  hands.  The  stormy 
winds  fulfil  His  good  will.  No  matter  about  the  poor 
broken  body  :  we  are  not  our  bodies,  we  are  spirits  ; 
and  our  spirits  amid  all  outward  tumult  and  destruc- 
tion are  hidden  and  safe  in  God,  the  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Father  Spirit. 

2.  The  faith  of  Jesus  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
rightly  and  vitally  held,  affects  our  feeling  towards 
our  earthly  life,  teaching  us  to  regard  it  as  educational 
in  its  significance  and  purpose.  The  thought  of  Jesus 
concerning  life,  that  it  is  an  education,  flows  from  His 
thought  of  God.  All  the  education  which  the  earthly 
parent  gives  to  his  boys  and  girls  in  order  to  make 
them  noble  men  and  women,  God  gives  to  His  children 
infinitely.  Thus  life  becomes  a  school,  and  God  the 
teacher.  Every  experience  is  meant  to  be  part  of  the 
Divine  teaching,  our  pains  as  well  as  our  pleasures,  our 
hard  tasks  as  well  as  our  congenial  labours,  the  penalties 
of  our  wrongdoing  as  well  as  the  rewards  of  our  obe- 
dience. The  training  of  God  is  often  severe,  because 
He  cares  more  to  have  goodness  and  strength  in  His 
children  than  merely  to  arrange  for  their  present  ease 
and  happiness.  Although  He  restrains  and  controls  our 
freedom  and  will  not  allow  us  to  take  the  fatal  final  step 
that  would  destroy  us  utterly,  yet  He  gives  us  large 
freedom  that  we  may  learn  perfectly  the  lessons  which 
experience  alone  can  teach  effectively,  and  derive  from 
our  follies  and   failures  a  development  of   power  and 


INTO  THY  HANDS  165 

character  which  could  not  be  gained,  to  all  appearance, 
in  any  other  way. 

This  view  of  Jesus  that  life  is  an  education  may 
demand  even  now  a  wider  conception  of  things  than 
many  religious  people  are  consciously  acquainted  with  ; 
but  it  is  the  only  view  of  life  which  harmonises  with  faith 
in  Eternal  Goodness  and  Fatherhood,  and  the  only  view 
which  accords  with  the  deeper  facts  of  human  experience. 
Yes  !  what  God  means  us  to  get  out  of  life  is  education 
— education  by  means  of  happiness  and  joy,  and  also  by 
means  of  toil  and  hardship  and  sorrow.  But  we  must 
co-operate  with  God  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  purpose  of 
life.  We  must  enter  into  His  plans  and  help  to  carry 
them  out.  The  prayer  of  Jesus  on  the  Cross  is  therefore 
a  prayer,  not  only  for  the  last  moment  and  act  of  life, 
but  for  every  moment  and  act  of  our  days  ;  not  alone 
for  the  path  where  no  human  presence  may  encourage 
and  support  us,  but  for  every  day's  uncertain  lot  and 
every  night's  dark  hours  ;  not  alone  for  critical  excite- 
ments and  surprises,  that  we  may  through  all  be  undis- 
turbedin  spirit,  butin  every  common  duty  and  experience. 
Everywhere  and  at  all  times  we  need  the  Eternal  care. 
Let  it,  then,  be  our  unceasing  prayer  :  Father,  into 
Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  for  this  passing  hour 
and  for  every  hour,  to  train,  to  mould,  to  save,  to 
support,  to  quicken,  to  perfect,  to  do  with  me  even 
as  Thou  wilt,  that  1  may  always  feel  and  think,  behave 
and  live,  as  a  faithful  child  of  Thine. 


1 66  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

3.  The  faith  of  Jesus  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
rightly  and  vitally  held,  changes,  as  if  by  a  subtle  and 
mighty  force,  our  whole  feeling  towards  death,  moving 
us  to  regard  it,  not  as  a  sinking  into  an  unknown  abyss 
of  darkness  and  silence,  but  simply  as  the  passing  of  the 
spirit  from  the  body — the  living  spirit,  with  all  its 
powers,  into  the  hands  of  the  living  Father — a  change 
that  will  affect  our  personality  just  as  little  as  the  sleep 
that  rounds  our  daily  life.  Let  us  learn  from  Jesus 
the  meaning  of  death.  It  was  not  into  an  empty  or 
unknown  void  He  resigned  His  own  spirit.  No  dark 
dream  of  annihilation  troubled  Him  in  the  great  dis- 
ruption. He  had  no  feeling  of  submitting  Himself 
to  a  terrible  necessity,  to  an  inevitable  doom,  to  an 
irresistible  fate,  to  an  unhuman,  undivine  Power  which 
must  be  obeyed.  No  !  For  Him,  dying  was  a  going 
to  His  Father,  the  final  earthly  surrender  of  child  to 
Father — to  a  Father  in  whom  is  no  darkness  even  where 
darkness  seemed  to  reign  absolute  and  alone. 

"  We  are  planted  together,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  in  the 
likeness  of  His  death."  We  are  called  upon  to  believe 
that  what  death  was  to  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  to  every  child 
of  God — a  passing  more  than  ever  into  the  Father's 
hands.  And  it  is  not  our  faith  that  makes  this  to  be 
the  fact  concerning  death.  Our  faith  does  not  create 
the  fact  ;  it  is  the  recognition  and  realisation  of  the  fact, 
enabling  us  to  appropriate  the  comfort  of  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  Father,  not  a  fate  —  a  Father,  not  a  foe — who 


INTO  THY  HANDS  167 

receives  the  last  offering  of  ourselves,  and  that  we  do 
not  perish  when  we  seem  to  perish,  that  death  does 
not  break  the  bonds  which  hold  us  to  ourselves  and  to 
our  brethren,  because  it  does  not,  and  cannot,  break 
the  bonds  which  bind  us  to  God,  the  Father  of  our 
spirits. 

"  Father,  into  Thy  hands."  No  one  who  truly 
believes  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  can  fear  death. 
Death  as  a  terror  is  abolished.  The  grave  has  no 
victory.  The  dust  returns  to  the  earth,  and  the  earth 
may  keep  it  without  any  hope  or  need  of  resurrection, 
but  the  spirit  rises  and  ascends  to  God,  and  He  gives  it 
another  body  as  it  pleases  Him.  But  we  are  in  His 
care  whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body,  and  all 
through  the  mystery  of  that  passage  from  the  seen  to 
the  unseen.  Let  us  not  trouble  about  dying.  Let 
our  hearts  rest  where  the  heart  of  Jesus  rested.  No 
fearful  adventure,  no  leap  in  the  dark,  can  death  be  to 
those  who  live  and  die  in  His  faith.  It  was  said  of 
Him  that  He  was  delivered  into  the  hands  of  men  to 
be  crucified,  but  beneath  the  hands  of  His  foes  were 
His  Father's  hands.  So  when  we  fall,  it  is  not  into 
the  hands  of  disease,  decay  and  destruction,  but  into 
the  hands  of  the  living  and  Eternal  Father,  who  will 
keep  that  which  in  life's  last  moment  of  renunciation 
we  commit  to  Him. 

4.  The  faith  of  Jesus  in  the  Fatherhood  of    God, 
rightly  and  vitally  held,  affects  our  feeling  toward  the 


1 68  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

whole  hereafter,  changing  its  aspect  and  character, 
making  all  the  worlds,  visible  and  invisible,  the  Father's 
house  of  many  mansions,  and  giving  us  the  persuasion 
that  we  cannot  go  where  the  Eternal  love  does  not 
reign  and  where  we  do  not  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being  in  it.  What  awaits  us  we  cannot  say  ;  our 
wisest  words  here  are  the  humblest  words  we  can 
speak  ;  but  this  we  know,  and  this  is  everything — the 
Father  awaits  us,  and  there,  as  here,  only  good  can  come 
from  Him.  The  same  Fatherly  love  which  enfolds  us 
in  this  world  will  enfold  us  in  all  the  worlds  and  through 
the  endless  ages.  There  may  be  an  intermediate  state 
and  purging  and  purifying  fires.  But  wherever  we 
awake — in  purgatory,  or  hell,  or  heaven — we  shall 
still  be  with  God.  It  is  the  Father  who  will  be 
dealing  with  us,  searching  and  trying  us,  giving  us 
every  reward  or  penalty  we  deserve,  and  making  even 
His  judgments  help  and  save  us.  With  sin  upon 
our  souls  and  with  our  lives  set  in  opposition  to  the 
Divine  will,  it  may  be  a  fearful  thing,  as  an  early 
Christian  teacher  said,  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
living  God.  But  would  it  not  be  a  more  fearful 
thing  to  fall  out  of  His  hands,  if  such  a  thing  were 
possible  ?  Even  the  doom  of  the  impenitent  cannot 
be  all  terror,  nor  the  half  of  it.  Sin  is  a  fearful  thing, 
but  the  discipline,  however  stern  and  searching,  that 
seeks  to  free  the  spirit  from  its  power  and  stain  is 
blessed.     No  !      It   cannot  be  a  fearful  thing  for  any 


INTO  THY  HANDS  169 

of  God's  children,  however  defiled,  to  fall  into  their 
Father's  hands. 

Who  can  look  gloomily  into  the  future  ?  It  is 
superstition,  not  true  religion,  that  fills  the  future 
with  endless  terrors  and  despairs.  When  the  word 
"  Father  "  was  born  into  human  thought,  all  doubt  and 
dread  ought  to  have  gone  out  for  ever.  It  ought  to 
have  filled  the  whole  universe  with  light,  and  made  it 
alive  with  endless  possibilities  of  growth  and  good. 
We  cannot  anticipate  the  ways  of  God,  and  know  not 
what  disciplines  and  experiences  may  be  required  to 
restore  to  goodness  His  prodigals  ;  but  this  we  know, 
that  no  soul  can  ever  wander  beyond  His  merciful  and 
faithful  care  or  fall  out  of  His  hands.  He  is  inalien- 
ably and  eternally  the  Father.  We  may  be  sure  that 
our  redemption  and  perfection  are  everlasting  necessities 
to  Him,  and  that  He  who  gives  aeons,  ages  upon  ages, 
to  the  mark  on  a  bird's  wing,  to  the  colour  of  a  flower, 
to  the  making  of  a  rock,  will  not  give  less  time  to  the 
saving  and  training  of  His  children.  Somehow  and 
somewhere  we  are  persuaded  His  love  must  triumph 
over  all  that  is  opposed  to  it — even  over  the  most 
stubborn  wilfulness  of  the  worst  sinner.  Whatever  of 
precise  and  particular  knowledge  may  be  wanting,  this 
at  least  is  absolutely  sure — His  mercy  endureth  for 
ever,  and  nothing  can  pluck  us  out  of  the  Father's 
hands. 

It  is  told  of  the  late  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen 


lyo  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

that,  walking  many  years  ago  with  a  friend  over  a 
Northern  moor,  he  was  met  by  a  shepherd,  whom  he 
greeted,  and  then  added  the  words,  "  Do  you  know  the 
Father  ?  "  There  was  no  time  for  more.  Years  after- 
wards the  same  friends  made  the  same  journey,  and  on 
the  same  moor  the  shepherd,  now  an  old  man,  came 
up  and  grasped  the  arm  of  him  whose  words  had  lifted 
him  from  his  poor  anxieties  and  fears  into  the  sense  that 
he  was  the  object  of  eternal  love  and  care,  and  he  said, 
"  Mr.  Erskine,  I  know  the  Father  now." 

Men  and  women  1  do  you  know  the  Father  ?  If 
you  know  the  Father,  then  your  attitude  will  be  serene 
and  fearless  toward  the  unexplained  mysteries  of  exist- 
ence, trustful  toward  the  universe  and  its  laws,  toward 
the  unknown  future,  here  and  hereafter  ;  you  will  be 
walking  through  life  untroubled  by  the  things  which  so 
much  trouble  many,  assured  that  the  one  Spirit  behind 
and  through  all  is  the  omnipotent  Spirit  of  goodness 
and  encompassed  with  a  sense  of  the  everlasting  love 
and  care  ;  your  one  prayer  for  life  and  for  death,  for 
this  world  and  for  all  the  worlds,  this  :  "  Father,  into 
Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 


p/t/Z/tA^-^ 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO  «- 

"  For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor 
principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord." — Rom.  viii.  38,  39. 

Some  years  ago  a  brilliant  French  critic  ventured  to 
criticise  the  style  of  St.  Paul,  or  rather,  his  want  of  style. 
His  sentences,  we  were  told,  were  rugged,  broken, 
involved,  full  of  abrupt  transitions,  without  form  and 
beauty.  The  criticism,  I  suppose,  will  not  be  questioned 
by  any  student  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  But  at  times 
when  the  apostle's  soul  was  on  fire  with  his  theme  the 
effect  on  his  language  was  remarkable ;  his  style  rose 
in  dignity,  his  thought  ran  into  fine  and  lovely  form, 
and  shaped  itself  spontaneously  into  sentences  of  noblest 
eloquence.  What  a  sublime  strain,  for  example,  is  the 
hymn  to  love  which  we  find  in  the  midst  of  the 
practical  details  of  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  ; 
and  also  that  song  of  victory  over  death  and  hades 
which  is  associated  with  the  saddest  and  most  pathetic 
moments  of    many  lives.     The  passage  to  which  our 

171 


172  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

text  belongs  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  one  of  the 
greatest  passages  in  the  religious  literature  of  the  world. 
Dante  and  Milton  never  rose  so  high  as  does  St.  Paul 
in  this  famous  chapter.  Hardly  anywhere  do  we  find 
a  clearer  and  fuller  recognition  of  all  the  elements  in 
the  world  and  in  life  which  we  describe  as  evil,  yet  its 
whole  tone  is  triumphant.  It  is  full  of  solemn  joy  and 
exultation.  Surely  he  who  wrote  it  saw  with  inspired 
vision.  Its  theology  is  not  that  of  a  great  despair,  but 
of  a  great  and  boundless  hope.  Creation  is  subject  to 
vanity,  but  it  is  subject  in  hope.  Its  pains  are  the  pains 
of  development.  We  do  not  now  see  even  Nature  as 
God  intends  it ;  its  prophecy  has  yet  to  be  fulfilled.  And 
we  who  have  the  first-fruits  of  the  spirit  groan  within 
ourselves,  but  we  also  are  saved  by  hope.  It  is  not  lost 
ground  we  are  toiling  to  regain.  The  march  of  humanity 
is  upward.  The  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  men  as 
the  sons  of  God  is  the  goal  of  human  progress.  To  be- 
come sons  of  God  in  conscious  relation  and  character  as 
in  idea  and  capacity — that  is  the  meaning  and  end  of 
human  discipline.  And  when  man  is  what  God  means 
him  to  be,  Nature,  too,  shall  be  perfected  with  him — the 
system  of  things  which  is  being  used  now  to  serve 
redemptive  and  disciplinary  purposes  shall  be  delivered 
from  its  bondage  and  share  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of 
the  children  of  God.  The  end  is  not  yet,  but  all  things 
are  moving  towards  it,  however  much  appearances  may 
at  times  give  a  diflFerent  impression.     To  those  who  love 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     173 

God  and  are  putting  themselves  in  line  with  the  Divine 
purpose  and  movement  all  things  will  prove  helpful : 
evil  will  not  remain  evil,  but  will  be  constantly  chang- 
ing into  good.  We  grow  by  opposition.  On  the  side 
of  God  we  have  God  on  our  side.  Our  redemption 
is  not  at  the  mercy  of  accidents.  We  are  predestined 
to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  Christ.  The  presence 
in  human  history  of  the  highest  form  of  the  Divine  life 
is  an  implicit  prophecy  of  its  ultimate  attainment  by  all. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Messiah  of  the  spiritual  evolution, 
the  type  and  promise  of  our  final  perfection.  We  need 
never  doubt  the  God  who  gave  us  Christ ;  with  Christ 
all  things  else  are  given.  There  is  nothing  too  good  to 
be  true.  The  God  who  is  making  us  and  the  world 
will  not  defeat  His  own  ends  by  putting  any  arbitrary, 
impassable  barrier  between  us  and  the  perfect  good 
which  is  His  own  purpose.  God  and  good  are  one, 
therefore  the  whole  universe  must  be  moving  steadily 
through  such  processes  as  finite  growth  requires  toward 
complete  and  everlasting  harmony  with  good.  God 
has  to  satisfy,  not  only  His  children,  but  Himself.  The 
love  of  God,  of  which  the  name  of  Christ  is  the 
symbol,  is  a  living  power  of  atonement  or  reconciliation. 
Bound  up  with  our  Christian  faith  in  God  are  endless 
possibilities  of  redemption  and  development.  All  this 
struggle  and  discipline,  all  this  preparation  and  Divine 
manifestation,  are  not  for  any  merely  temporal  purpose 
nor  for  any  victory  less  than  the  infinite  victory.     For 


174  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

the  joy  that  is  set  before  Hnn — the  joy  of  beholding 
a  Divine  humanity — the  Creator,  Father  and  Saviour 
of  all  can  endure  the  vision  of  a  suffering  world,  and 
the  struggle  of  a  rising  and  ascending  race. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  St.  Paul  made  Christianity, 
but  when  we  go  beneath  the  letter  of  his  teaching  to  its 
fundamental  ideas  and  persuasions,  then  are  we  sure 
that  Jesus  Christ  made  Paul,  and  that  if  there  had  been 
no  Jesus  Christ  there  would  have  been  no  Apostle  Paul. 
Whatever  criticism  may  be  made  on  portions  or  details 
of  his  teaching,  and  however  its  form  may  have  been 
shaped  and  coloured  by  the  needs  of  his  age,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  what  he  became  in  character  and 
life,  what  he  taught  and  what  he  did,  was  all,  as  he 
himself  loved  to  confess,  "  through  Jesus  Christ." 
The  time  may  come  when  we  shall  no  longer  be  able  to 
meditate  upon  the  great  Christian  ideas  according  to 
the  forms  of  thought  peculiar  to  St.  Paul,  and  when 
we  shall  no  longer  expect  all  Christian  experience  to 
flow  into  his  moulds  ;  but  hitherto  Christendom  has 
borrowed  more  of  his  phrases  than  his  thought,  and 
made  his  phrases  symbolical  of  quite  other  thoughts 
than  those  which  they  symbolised  to  him. 

We  are  only  beginning  to  do  full  justice  to  his 
catholic  teaching,  to  his  universalism  and  his  concep- 
tion of  Christianity  as  a  religion  of  the  spirit.  His 
powerful  mind,  it  is  plain,  saw  more  clearly  than  the 
rest    of    the   apostles    the    universal    character    of    the 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     175 

religion  of  Christ  and  the  necessity  of  delivering  it  from 
Jewish  limitations.  Once  he  may  have  regarded 
Deity  as  the  Head  and  Patron  of  one  race,  but  Christ 
had  been  made  to  him  the  Wisdom  of  God,  and  in 
Christ  he  saw  the  Representative  of  Infinite  Grace,  the 
Revelation  of  Eternal  Charity. 

The  chapter  from  which  our  text  is  taken  has  been 
closely  and  sadly  connected  with  the  partial  conceptions 
of  schools  and  sects,  but  it  has  only  to  be  read  as  a 
whole  and  in  a  large  way  to  be  heard  crying  anathema 
on  the  exclusive  theories  which  have  stolen  from  it 
their  proof-texts.  St.  Paul's  doctrines  of  predestination 
and  election  are  not  doctrines  of  narrowness  and 
exclusion,  but  of  liberality  and  breadth.  He  says 
substantially  that  God  can  choose  whom  He  pleaseth, 
and  he  has  chosen,  not  the  Jews  alone,  but  also  the 
Gentiles.  When  by  the  exercise  of  the  historical 
imagination  we  put  ourselves  in  the  apostle's  place  we 
discover  that  the  one  object  of  this  chapter,  indeed  of 
the  whole  of  the  first  part  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
is  to  show  that  those  who  are  outside  "  the  law  "  are  not 
outside  the  Divine  mercy  and  care,  that  their  salvation 
is  included  in  the  purpose  of  God.  The  magnificent 
passage  I  read  as  my  text  is  the  conclusion  of  his 
great  argument.  In  the  progress  of  his  thought  he  has 
escaped  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  law  into  the 
atmosphere  of  the  love  which  is  the  inspiration  of  the 
new  and  redeemed  life.     This  love  is  in  Christ,  but  the 


176  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

love  of  Christ  is  only  the  love  of  God  in  a  finite  and 
human  environment,  moving  and  manifesting  itself 
amid  the  ways  of  earth  and  time.  Nothing  could  be 
more  at  variance  with  the  apostle's  teaching  than  to 
make  the  love  of  Christ  stand  out  clear  and  bright  only 
against  the  background  of  God's  wrath  or  indifference. 
The  heart  of  Christ  is  the  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
God.  The  love  of  Christ  and  the  love  of  God  are  one 
and  the  same  Divine  ReaHty.  St.  Paul  begins  what 
may  be  called  his  peroration  by  asking,  "  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ? "  Then  follows  a 
sublimely  imagined  series  of  all  the  possible  conditions  or 
influences  which  might  be  supposed  capable  of  effecting 
a  separation  between  the  soul  and  God.  He  declares 
with  much  boldness  and  enthusiasm  that  all  visible  and 
palpable  dangers,  the  opposing  forces  of  Roman  society 
and  the  Roman  state — "  tribulation,  distress,  persecution, 
famine,  nakedness,  peril  and  sword  " — would  not  be  able 
to  conquer  them  or  to  disunite  them  from  God  their 
Saviour.  But  his  confidence  takes  even  a  much  higher 
and  wider  range  :  rising  above  the  passing  incidents  of 
place  and  time  he  surveys  from  a  commanding  height  the 
whole  creation.  There  is  nought,  he  is  persuaded,  in  the 
whole  universe  that  need  rob  them  of  hope  or  disturb 
their  faith  in  the  Divine  love.  With  great  wealth  of 
expression  and  imagery  he  seeks  to  make  this  persuasion 
emphatic.  He  sweeps  creation  into  a  few  vast  categories. 
No  possible  condition  of  existence,  be  it  life  or  death  ; 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     177 

no  vicissitudes  of  time  ;  no  farthest  extreme  of  space,  be 
it  height  or  depth  ;  no  unseen  influence,  no  force  above 
human  ken,  no  hostile  principalities  or  powers  ;  no, 
not  any  conceivable  thing  in  the  present  or  in  the 
future,  in  this  world  or  in  the  world  to  come,  in  the 
region  of  the  known  or  the  unknown,  "  shall  be  able 
to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord." 

One  must  be  dull  of  mind  and  heart  who  is  not 
thrilled  by  the  power  and  beauty  of  this  whole  passage. 
It  does  us  good  to  get  near  to  a  man  who  can  honestly 
use  such  bold,  unfaltering  words  with  regard  to  such 
a  central  verity  as  the  love  of  God  for  His  children. 
His  confession  is  contagious.  His  strong  and 
triumphant  faith — the  outcome  of  painful  and  intense 
experience — makes  us  ashamed  of  our  little  faith  and 
lack  of  faith,  rebukes  our  unbelief,  and  raises  us  by 
the  power  of  sympathy  above  the  mists  of  doubt  and 
fear  into  the  clear  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived  and 
moved. 

I     have    spoken    of    "  little    faith."       And    what    a 

common  thing    little  faith   is — faith  that  is  more  fear 

than  faith,  more  doubt  than  faith,  faith  that  trembles 

and  shrinks  !     We  find  it  everywhere :   in  hymns  and 

prayers  and  sermons,  and  in  our  own  hearts.     We  are 

not  afraid  of  believing  in  too  many  things,  but  we  are 

afraid    of    believing    too     much    in    anything,    afraid 

especially  of  believing  too  much  in  the  Eternal  Love 

12 


178  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

which  is  the  very  heart  of  rehgion  and  the  foundation 
of  human  hope.  St.  Paul's  faith  in  the  love  of  God  is 
too  great  for  us  to  realise.  It  seems  too  large,  too 
daring,  too  wonderful  to  be  true. 

All  this  lingering  suspicion,  fear  and  hesitation,  all 
this  low  estimate  of  the  love  of  God,  are  the  result  of 
the  religious  training  under  which  many  of  us  spent 
our  youth.  We  were  trained  in  fear.  Our  earliest 
religious  thoughts  and  feelings  were  shaped  to  a  large 
extent  by  fear.  We  were  afraid  to  trust  God,  afraid  to 
believe  to  the  uttermost  in  the  Divine  goodness  and 
mercy.  And  though  we  know  better  now,  we  find  it 
almost  impossible  to  get  all  the  evil  effects  of  that  early 
chill  out  of  our  system.  The  old  pagan  spirit  of  fear  is 
still  in  our  blood. 

It  is  still  the  evident  and  immediate  duty  of  many 
people  living  in  Christian  lands  to  set  themselves  at 
once  to  know  God  as  He  has  been  revealed  to  the 
world  by  Jesus  Christ.  To  know  Him  is  to  have  an 
untroubled  and  unlimited  confidence  in  Him,  and  their 
want  of  this  confidence  shows  that  they  do  not  know 
Him.  Right  knowledge  of  God  is  everything  for 
strength  and  peace.  It  is  told  of  one  of  our  Scottish 
martyrs,  oppressed  by  his  harsh  and  gloomy  creed, 
that  looking  up  to  the  hills  of  his  native  Nithsdale  he 
cried  out,  "  I  could  pass  through  these  mountains  were 
they  clothed  in  flame  if  I  could  only  be  sure  that  God 
loves  me."     The  confidence  that  God  loves  us  just  as 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     179 

we  are  ought  to  be  our  firm  persuasion — the  thing  of 
all  things  of  which  we  ought  to  be  most  sure.  There 
is  something  seriously,  ay,  horribly  wrong  with  our 
religious  teaching  if  this  confidence  is  not  one  of  the 
clear,  indisputable  possessions  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  who  comes  under  its  influence.  It  is  a  great 
and  unspeakable  blessing  when  children  grow  up  in  a 
church  in  which  they  are  taught  from  their  earliest 
years  that  God  is  love — pure,  universal,  eternal  love — 
love  that  makes  nothing  in  the  way  of  forgiveness  and 
redemption  impossible  to  Him.  Their  knowledge  will 
save  them  from  much  distress  and  misery  in  after  years. 
No  matter  what  may  happen  to  them  or  whither  they 
may  wander,  they  have  rooted  deeply  in  their  hearts  a 
faith  full  of  endless  power  of  redemption  and  consolation. 
It  is  St.  Paul's  strong  persuasion  of  the  love  of  God 
which  men  and  women  need  more  than  anything  else 
to  steady  and  strengthen  them  when  life  seems  going 
against  them  and  their  own  hearts  are  fainting  and 
failing. 

The  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  is  the 
heart  of  the  Christian  Gospel.  It  was  what  won  the 
world  at  the  beginning  to  the  Christian  obedience,  and 
it  is  what  holds  the  world  now  and  will  hold  it,  so  long 
as  there  are  sins  to  be  forgiven  and  hearts  hungering 
for  reconciliation  with  God.  It  is  independent  of  much 
knowledge  which  may  be  discredited,  and  of  much 
opinion    which    may   become    a    fashion    of    the    past. 


i8o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Whatever  else  which  passes  for  Christianity  and  is 
supposed  in  some  way  to  uphold  it  may  decrease  and 
disappear,  this  will  increase  and  rise  with  purer  and 
greater  brightness  upon  the  world.  Every  one  of 
our  intellectual  conceptions  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Godhead,  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Atonement, 
may  undergo  a  change,  but  the  love  which  spoke, 
and  acted,  and  lived  in  Jesus  Christ  will  always  touch 
the  human  heart  with  the  deepest  conviction  and 
assurance  of  the  love  of  God,  and  be  the  revelation 
and  symbol  of  the  Divine  disposition  toward  the 
children  of  men. 

Readers  of  Matthew  Arnold  will  remember  that  in 
his  essays  on  St.  Paul  he  interprets  our  text  as  if  the 
apostle  were  exulting  in  his  own  love  of  God  instead 
of  God's  love  of  him  :  exulting  in  a  love  proceeding 
from  himself  instead  of  a  love  which  found  him  and 
carried  him  away  with  it.  It  shows  almost  as  strange 
a  lack  of  insight  as  does  the  same  writer's  conception 
of  the  God  of  Israel  as  an  impersonal  force.  The 
secret  of  St.  Paul's  calm  outlook  and  triumphant  hope, 
the  power  that  enabled  him  to  rise  above  all  evil  and 
fear  of  evil,  was,  most  assuredly,  not  his  own  love  of 
God,  but  God's  love  of  him.  The  great  saints  of  the 
Church  have  never  thought  much  of  their  own  love  of 
God.  It  is  His  love  of  them  and  their  fellows — a  love 
greater  than  their  hearts — which  possessed  them.  "  I 
think  I  am  the  poorest  wretch  that  lives,"  said  the  dying 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     i8i 

Cromwell  ;    "  but  I  love  God,  or   rather "  (correcting 
himself)  "  I  am  loved  of  God." 

" ....   I  love  ;  but  ah  !    the  whole 

Of  love  is  but  my  answer,  Lord,  to  Thee. 
Lord,  Thou  wert  long  beforehand  with  my  soul. 
Always  Thou  lovedst  me." 

In  his  Reminiscences  of  Frederick  Denison  Maurice 
the  late  Mr  Haweis  relates  this  incident  :  "  I  remember 
asking  him  one  day,  '  How  are  we  to  know  when 
we  have  got  hold  of  God  'i  because  sometimes  we  seem 
to  have  got  a  real  hold  of  Him,  whilst  at  other  times 
we  can  realise  nothing.'  He  looked  at  me  with  those 
eyes  which  so  often  seemed  to  be  looking  into  an 
eternity  beyond,  whilst  he  said  in  his  deep  and  tremu- 
lously earnest  voice,  *  You  have  not  got  hold  of  God, 
but  He  has  got  hold  of  you.' "  Yes,  there  is  the 
point.  We  must  not  measure  God  by  our  feelings 
and  experiences.  He  does  not  change  with  our 
changing  moods  and  states.  "  If  we  are  faithless.  He 
abideth  faithful,  for  He  cannot  deny  Himself."  Let 
us  learn  St.  Paul's  secret.  His  strength  and  peace 
will  come  to  us  as  we  share  his  great  persuasion  that 
our  salvation,  our  victory  over  sin  and  sorrow,  over  life 
and  death,  depends,  not  on  our  love  of  God,  but  on 
God's  love  for  us. 

I.  Let  us  take  to  our  hearts  this  thought — that  life 
and  none  of  its  possible  incidents  and  experiences  can 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  God. 


1 82  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Life  is  the  cause  of  many  separations.  Of  all 
disuniting  and  disintegrating  forces  it  is  the  most 
powerful,  it  breaks  more  ties  than  are  broken  by 
death.  Indeed,  death,  though  it  separates  us  from  the 
visible  fellowship  of  our  friends,  does  not  destroy  or 
even  lessen  love,  rather  does  it  consecrate  and  deepen 
it.  It  is  life,  not  death,  that  is  the  great  divider  of 
human  hearts.  It  is  life,  not  death,  that  is  the  most 
searching  test  of  love.  It  is  the  living  who  leave  us, 
not  the  dead.  Differences  arise  between  friends  which 
were  once  not  even  imagined — changes  of  mind  and 
character  more  or  less  unconscious,  frictions  of  opinion, 
mood,  temper  and  will,  sever  bonds  which  death  would 
only  have  hallowed  and  strengthened  and  sealed  fast 
for  ever. 

But  life,  said  the  apostle,  does  not  and  cannot 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  God.  And  that  jubilant 
expression  of  faith  did  not  proceed  from  a  man  who 
had  no  true  and  vivid  idea  of  the  gravity  of  life — of 
its  terrors  and  dangers,  its  chances  and  changes,  its 
illusions  and  disillusions,  its  responsibilities  and  temp- 
tations. To  St.  Paul  life  was  not  a  smooth  and  easy 
thing,  but  a  battle  full  of  great  and  solemn  meanings 
and  issues.  He  had  known  critical  experiences  both 
intellectual  and  moral.  Many  past  gains  had  to  be 
counted  loss  for  Christ.  At  times  he  seems  to  have 
been  haunted  by  the  fear  that,  after  all  the  good  work 
he  had  done  for  his  fellows,  he  might  himself  at  the 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     183 

last  become  a  castaway.  It  was  not  because  he  was 
ignorant  of  antagonisms  and  dangers,  of  fightings 
within  and  without,  that  he  was  so  bold.  It  was  as 
if  he  had  said  :  "  I  grant  that  life  has  its  terrors  ;  but 
terrible  as  it  is,  and  fraught  with  occasions  for 
falling  away,  I  am  persuaded  that  not  even  life  shall 
be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord." 

There  was  a  time  in  St.  Paul's  life  when  he  was 
ignorant  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ,  but  his  ignorance 
did  not  separate  him  from  it  ;  he  was  living  and  moving 
in  it,  though  it  was  to  him,  then,  a  world  not  realised. 
There  comes  an  hour — a  never-to-be-forgotten  hour — 
in  the  life  of  a  man  when  he  awakens  to  the  reality  of 
the  Divine  love,  and  through  faith  it  becomes  a  personal 
and  conscious  possession.  It  may  appear  to  him  as  if 
at  that  moment  God  had  just  begun  to  love  him.  It  is 
as  if  a  man  blind  from  his  birth  should  have  his  sight 
given,  and  on  going  out  of  doors  should  imagine  that 
the  sun  is  just  beginning  to  shine  and  the  earth  to  be 
beautiful.  But  all  the  loveliness  and  splendour  have 
been  there  from  the  beginning.  It  is  the  man's  eyes 
that  have  been  closed  to  them.  The  love  of  God  is 
not  created  by  our  knowledge  of  it  nor  by  our  faith  in 
it.  It  broods  over  our  life  through  long  periods  when 
we  have  no  sense  or  realisation  of  it.  Our  ignorance 
and  insensibility  may  rob  us  of  much  peace  and  joy 
and  inspiration,  but  they  do  not,  and  cannot,  separate 


1 84  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

us  from  that  Divine  love  which  found  its  divinest 
expression  in  the  life  and  love  of  Christ.  It  is  ever 
upon  us,  blessing  us  through  all  the  time  of  our 
blindness  and  darkness. 

They  tell  us  that  man  is  so  little  and  feeble  that  he 
is  beneath  the  love  and  care  of  God.  In  His  infinite 
greatness  and  glory  how  can  He  concern  Himself  with 
our  interests  or  do  aught  but  scorn  our  weakness  .'' 
Is  that  the  way  we  think  of  perfection  .''  Have  we 
not  always  more  care  for  the  small  and  feeble  just 
because  they  are  small  and  feeble  .''  To  Charles  Lamb 
the  wild,  wandering  words  of  his  insane  sister  were 
dearer  than  all  the  sound  sense  and  sanity  of  the  world. 
If  we,  being  evil,  are  moved  by  such  sentiments,  how 
much  more  the  Heavenly  Father  ?  It  is  a  poor  and 
vulgar  idea  of  greatness  which  leads  men  to  suppose 
that  the  Infinite  Greatness  is  above  taking  any  interest 
in  our  small  affairs  and  must  be  indifferent  as  to  how 
we  live  and  how  we  die.  It  is  only  the  worldly  great 
who  shrink  from  contact  with  little  things  and  so-called 
little  men — not  the  truly  and  nobly  great.  In  the 
school  of  Christ  we  have  been  taught  that  service  is 
the  greatness  of  man.  It  is  also  the  greatness  of  God. 
Is  not  God  the  servant  of  His  own  universe  ?  Does 
not  His  very  life  consist  in  the  ceaseless  giving  of 
Himself  to  His  creatures  and  His  children  ?  Because 
He  is  the  great  God  He  cares  for  all  weak  and  lowly 
things.     To  behold  in  Jesus  Christ  "  the  brightness  of 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     185 

His  glory,"  is  to  know  that  "  the  All-Great  is  the  All- 
Loving  too,"  and  that  our  littleness  and  frailty  do  not 
and  cannot  separate  us  from  His  love. 

The  fear  has  often  been  expressed  in  recent  days 
that  though  our  ignorance  cannot  separate  us  from  God 
our  knowledge  may — especially  our  new  knowledge  of 
the  vastness  and  grandeur  of  the  material  creation. 
The  whole  tendency  of  scientific  progress,  we  are  told, 
is  to  enlarge  the  universe  and  to  belittle  man — belittle 
him  so  as  to  make  him  doubt  that  he  can  be  the  object 
of  the  everlasting  love  and  care  of  the  Lord  of  a  myriad 
worlds.  It  is  true  we  live  in  a  wider  universe  than  did 
the  men  to  whom  the  gospel  of  the  love  of  God  was  first 
preached,  but  this  knowledge,  wisely  considered,  does 
not  tend  to  depreciate  man  in  the  scale  of  creation  and 
to  make  him  of  slight  account.  On  the  contrary,  he  is 
himself  seen  to  be  the  occasion  of  all  this  scientific 
exploration  and  progress  whose  results  are  foolishly 
supposed  to  belittle  him.  What  are  the  size  and  bulk 
and  age  of  material  things,  what  distances  in  space  and 
time  and  swiftness  of  movement,  even  though  magnified 
till  numbers  fail  to  express  them,  when  compared  with  the 
mind  which  searches,  discovers,  measures,  and  reasons 
concerning  them  all  .''  Outward  size  and  consequence  are 
no  true  index  of  real  worth.  There  is  something  vulgar 
in  attaching  so  much  importance  to  material  magnitude 
and  permanence,  as  if  mere  bigness  were  greatness  and 
mere  existence  life.     The  greatness  of  man  is  of  another 


1 86  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  higher  order.  Thought,  and  purpose,  and  love  are 
the  truly  great  forces  in  the  universe  ;  and  because  man 
thinks  and  wills  and  loves,  there  is  a  wonder  in  him 
more  wonderful  than  that  of  moons  and  suns.  God  is 
the  Infinite  mind  and  will  and  heart,  and  because  man 
thinks  and  resolves  and  loves,  he  is  kindred  to  God, 
capable  of  entering  into  communion  with  Him,  of 
thinking  His  thoughts,  of  carrying  out  His  purposes 
and  of  responding  to  His  love,  and  therefore  more  to 
Him  than  a  wide  universe  full  of  thoughtless,  will-less, 
passionless  things.  The  vastness  of  material  things 
does  not  disturb  our  Christian  faith.  We  can  still  say 
with  St.  Paul  that  neither  this  nor  any  other  creation 
can  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord. 

Not  a  few  honest  and  devout  souls  in  these  days  are 
compelled  by  their  experience  to  interpret  "  life  "  in  our 
text  as  including  intellectual  perplexities  and  doubts, 
suspensions  of  judgment  on  important  matters  of  faith, 
uncertainties,  even  positive  disbelief  in  things  once 
surely  believed  among  us.  Growing  knowledge  in 
many  directions,  physical  discovery,  the  advance  of 
philosophical  thought,  the  new  science  of  comparative 
religion,  the  more  purely  critical  study  and  interpretation 
of  our  sacred  religious  literature — these  and  other  causes 
are  operating  to  unsettle  and  change  traditional  ways 
of  thinking  about  many  things  and  to  make  ancient 
symbols  fade  and  fail.     Let  us  not  be  anxious  or  fear- 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     187 

ful.  The  mind  must  obey  its  laws  ;  and  to  feel  and 
obey  the  sacred  claims  of  truth  is  to  love  God  with  the 
mind.  The  truth  of  things  is  also  the  thought  of  God 
in  things.  In  the  meantime  we  may  be  persuaded  that 
nothing  in  the  way  of  intellectual  change  and  develop- 
ment can  finally  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  in 
Christ.  Our  opinions  concerning  matters  which  can 
only  be  decided  by  rare  intellectual  knowledge  and 
keen  critical  acumen  cannot  affect  our  eternal  welfare. 
Mysteries  which  only  a  select  few  can  grasp  or  believe 
cannot  be  essential  to  salvation.  That  which  saves  all 
must  be  simple  enough  for  all  to  understand  and 
receive.  It  is  not  even  conceptions  of  God  and  His 
ways  which  save.  God  is  greater  than  our  thoughts. 
Believe  or  doubt  as  we  may,  He  is  still  our  salvation  ; 
and  our  perplexities  and  uncertainties,  however  much 
they  may  rob  us  of  His  peace,  have  no  power  to 
separate  us  from  His  Love. 

Now  and  again  we  are  all  conscious  of  a  spiritual 
elevation  to  which  the  larger  part  of  our  life  is  strange. 
The  faculties  to  which  and  through  which  God  speaks 
are  keenly  awake.  We  are  strung  to  a  tremulous 
intensity.  We  have  perceptions  and  suggestions  of 
realms  of  experience  of  which  we  are  mostly  ignorant. 
We  see  angels  ascending  and  descending,  and  our  feet 
move  to  the  music  of  the  heavenly  choirs.  We  are 
alive  to  God  and  His  love.  We  sit  with  Christ  on  the 
throne    of    His  vision  of  the  Eternal    Goodness   and 


1 88  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Fatherhood.  But  the  glory  passes.  We  go  down  again 
to  the  common  levels  of  life.  Earthly  cares  press  upon 
us  and  claim  our  strength.  We  dishonour  ourselves 
by  coarse  ambitions  and  mean  tempers.  We  pursue 
ignoble  ways  till  God  becomes  invisible  to  our  spirits 
and  His  love  for  us  incredible.  But  God  has  not  left  us. 
His  love  has  not  let  us  go  :  it  clings  to  us  and  follows 
us  in  all  our  wanderings,  and  is  as  much  a  reality  in  our 
dark  and  bitter  hours  as  it  was  when  we  were  joyously 
conscious  of  it  and  the  new  song  was  in  our  mouth. 
The  author  of  the  beautiful  hymn  beginning — 

"  O  Love  that  wilt  not  let  me  go," 

had  hours,  even  in  his  later  years,  when  he  was  not  sure 
of  anything — not  even  of  God  ;  and  all  the  lofty  and 
lovely  thoughts  and  hopes  with  which  he  inspired 
others  seemed  to  himself  to  be  the  figments  of  an  unreal 
and  vanished  enthusiasm.  In  depressed  health  and 
lowered  spirits,  when  care  or  pain  has  taken  the  buoy- 
ancy out  of  life,  we  have  all  yielded  to  doubt  of  God 
and  lost  for  a  time  the  believing  heart.  But  steadfast 
as  the  sun  and  stars  above  the  drifting  clouds  is  the 
love  of  God  for  His  children.  Yes  !  in  spite  of  all  the 
darkening  and  deadening  influences  of  life,  in  spite  of 
moods  that  rise  from  us  like  evil  mists  and  obscure 
the  heavens,  in  spite  of  our  selfishness  and  worldli- 
ness  and  the  base  tempers  and  passions  which  at  times 
vex  and  tear  us,  separating  us  from  all  that  we   once 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     189 

reckoned  to  be  good  and  fair,  and  effectually  robbing 
us  of  our  sense  of  the  Divine  nearness,  the  love  of 
God  is  not  changed  toward  us.  We  may  rebel,  we 
may  be  wicked,  we  may  lose  ourselves  in  strange  and 
forbidden  paths,  our  best  affections  and  enthusiasms 
may  die  out,  we  may  live  practically  without  God  in 
the  world  ;  yet  no  rebellion  can  break  the  tie  which 
binds  us  to  Him,  no  wickedness  can  make  Him 
disown  us,  and  no  indifference  can  deprive  us  of  His 
care.  Our  guilty  wanderings  may  separate  us  from  His 
blessedness,  but  not  from  His  love.  We  often  speak  of 
"abandoned  persons,"  "outcasts,"  "lost  souls,"  but 
there  is  a  Love  upon  this  world,  and  upon  every  man, 
woman,  and  child,  that  never  abandons,  never  forsakes, 
more  constant  in  its  care  than  we  are  in  rebellion,  more 
faithful  than  we  are  unfaithful,  more  anxious  to  bless 
than  we  are  to  be  blessed — a  Love  from  which  no  soul 
is  ever  outcast,  and  to  which  no  soul  is  ever  lost. 

It  is  one  of  the  worst  consequences  of  evil-doing 
that  it  distorts  our  thoughts  and  feelings  and  makes 
us  think  of  God  other  than  He  really  is.  It  is  only 
the  pure  in  heart  who  see  Him  truly.  It  is  only 
those  who  love  who  know  for  themselves  that  God  is 
perfect  love.  But  whether  we  doubt  it  or  believe  it, 
God  loves  us  always — loves  us  when  we  are  feeble  and 
foolish  and  bad.  The  very  remorse  we  feel  is  proof 
that  He  has  not  let  us  go ;  it  testifies  to  the  presence 
of    His   reproving  and  redeeming  Spirit.     He  is  still 


I90  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

dealing  mercifully  with  us  when  His  love  takes  the 
severe  form  of  justice  and  makes  us  chastise  ourselves. 
Would  that  we  could  live  in  this  clear  atmosphere, 
persuaded  that  God  is  love  and  that  His  love  can 
never  forget  and  never  forsake  !  We  should  then  no 
longer  be  the  victims  of  vague  fear.  We  should  have 
hope — hope  for  the  triumph  of  good  in  ourselves  and 
in  our  fellows.  For  when  we  sink  into  depths  of  evil, 
it  is  not  so  much  our  sin  which  hinders  our  deliver- 
ance as  want  of  faith  and  the  hope  that  is  born  of  faith. 
In  The  Pilgrims  Progress — that  wonderful  parable  of 
human  life  in  some  of  its  phases — there  is  no  finer 
evidence  of  the  Christian  genius  of  the  writer  than  his 
conviction  that  of  all  the  evils  which  the  pilgrim  en- 
countered, the  worst  was  Doubting  Castle,  ruled  by 
Giant  Despair.  When  the  pilgrim  found  himself  there 
he  believed  that  he  had  found  the  end.  That  familiar 
incident  is  the  symbol  of  an  eternal  truth  of  human  ex- 
perience. It  is  not  so  much  sin  that  conquers  people 
at  a  certain  stage  of  experience,  as  doubt  or  despair. 
Almost  any  lapse  can  be  recovered  from,  if  men  have 
only  heart  and  hope  and  courage  enough  to  turn  right 
round  and  begin  anew.  It  is  despair  that  is  fatal.  And 
one  form  of  this  despair  is  doubt  of  the  love  of  God, 
want  of  Christian  faith,  which  in  its  innermost  substance 
is  that  beholding  of  the  Divine  disposition  and  character 
in  the  disposition  and  character  of  Christ  which  draws 
and  binds  one  to  God  in  confidence  and  hope. 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     191 

When  the  guilty  Queen  Guinevere  in  Tennyson's 
poem  fled  from  Arthur's  presence  she  dared  not  to  lift  her 
soul  to  God,  but  she  could  relieve  her  heart  by  confes- 
sion to  the  peaceful  sisterhood  of  Almesbury.  After 
that  her  soul  rose  within  her  and  said,  "  I  must  not  scorn 
myself  ;  he  "  (the  King)  "  loves  me  still."  Oh,  souls  of 
men  weighed  down  by  dark  memories  and  fears,  believe 
that  the  King  of  the  universe  still  loves  you — loves  with 
a  love  that  never  changes,  from  which  you  are  never 
separated — not  in  the  midst  of  temptation  and  strife,  not 
when  you  are  disobedient  and  fall  into  wrong  and  spoil 
your  life — loves  with  a  love  that  loves  on  in  spite  of  all 
your  unworthiness,  even  though  your  own  love  of  God 
is  being  utterly  destroyed  by  your  sin.  "  Life,"  says  St. 
Paul,  "  cannot  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  nor  any 
present  things."  Let  us  believe  it  with  the  whole  heart. 
It  is  the  message  of  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  Let  us  also  take  to  our  hearts  this  thought,  that 
death  and  things  to  come  cannot  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  God.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  persuaded  that 
this  power  we  call  death,  which  has  been  so  feared  and 
fought  against,  cannot  sever  the  ties  which  unite  us  to 
God.  It  seems  to  separate  the  children  of  men  from 
so  much.  Every  day  we  see  it  in  its  own  ancient  and 
awful  way  invading  human  homes,  breaking  up  circles 
of  friendship,  and  laying  its  touch  upon  the  dearest 
attachments.  But  let  us  not  make  too  much  of  the 
isolating  power  of  death  even  from  this  point  of  view. 


192  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

There  is  a  love  between  soul  and  soul  which  death 
cannot  destroy — a  love  that  loves  on  though  the  out- 
ward presence  has  vanished,  and  is  often  conscious  even 
of  a  closer  communion  than  when  each  could  only  half 
express  itself  through  the  poor  medium  of  the  body. 
Death  means  invisibility,  but  not  the  loss  or  destruction 
of  love  ;  not  separation,  perhaps  not  even  distance. 
And  how  much  more  must  it  be  true  of  God  that  death 
cannot  divide  us  from  Him,  cannot  pluck  us  out  of 
His  hands,  cannot  crush  us  out  of  existence  ?  To  be 
loved  by  God  is  to  be  preserved  and  cherished.  We 
are  His  children,  therefore  we  must  live  on  with  Him 
and  be  cared  for  by  Him. 

"  Neither  death."  What  is  there  in  death  to  affect 
God  to  change  His  mind,  to  awaken  fear  or  suspicion 
as  to  anything  He  may  do,  or  to  make  us  think  that 
we  may  no  longer  pray  to  Him  for  those  whom  we  call 
the  dead  ?  To  Him  death  and  the  hereafter  are  not  the 
mysteries  and  barriers  they  are  to  us.  Those  who  die 
to  us  live  to  Him.  They  are  in  His  care  wherever  they 
are.  They  have  not  passed  from  His  sight  because 
they  have  passed  from  our  sight — gone  beyond  the 
range  of  our  eye  and  ear.  The  mere  passage  from  the 
seen  to  the  unseen  cannot  touch  His  influence.  His  love 
to  them.  His  power  to  help  them  and  to  hold  communion 
with  them.  Death  can  have  no  manner  of  dominion 
over  the  Love  that  gave  us  their  love,  and  gave  it,  not 
that  it  might  perish,  but  for  everlasting  life. 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     193 

In  a  few  short  years  we  who  worship  here  to-day  shall 
have  passed  away  from  these  earthly  scenes  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  and  our  voices  will  be  silent  in  this  world  as  are 
the  voices  of  our  fathers,  but  we  shall  still  be  living  and 
we  shall  still  be,  wherever  we  are,  with  God.  We  shall 
be  with  God  there  as  we  are  with  Him  here.  The 
faith  of  Christ  makes  the  present  and  the  future,  the 
seen  and  the  unseen,  appear  as  one — one  world  and  one 
life.  Death  is  the  end  of  nothing  but  of  a  certain 
relation  to  the  things  we  see.  It  will  leave  us  in  the 
same  relation  to  the  invisible  God — children  with  Father. 
Living  or  dying  we  are  His  :  in  this  world  and  in  all 
the  worlds  we  cannot  be  separated  from  His  love.  We 
cannot  forecast  the  coming  life  ;  but  when  once  we 
know  and  are  persuaded  that  God  loves  us  we  are  free 
from  the  fear  of  death  and  of  all  invisible  terrors.  It 
may  be  but  little  of  the  love  of  God  we  know  from 
experience,  but  to  have  felt  it  at  all  is  to  have  con- 
fidence in  it  for  ever.  The  endless  years,  we  feel 
assured,  can  bring  no  change  in  God.  We  can  trust 
ourselves  for  all  possible  circumstances  and  all  possible 
events  to  Him.     He  will  not  let  us  go. 

And  we  must  not  suffer  ourselves  to  think  even  of 
the  wickedest  and  worst  as  if  they  could  be  separated 
from  the  love  of  God.  Wherever  human  souls  are, 
there  God  is  and  every  possibility  of  help  and  blessing. 
Human  souls  may  be  lost  to  themselves  and  lost  to 
their  fellows,  but  not  lost    to    God — for  there    is    no 

13 


194  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

place  in  the  wide  universe  in  which  a  soul  can  be  lost 
to  Him  whose  presence  filleth  all  space.  Because  the 
universe  is  God's  there  is  no  room  in  it  for  such  a  word 
as  hopeless.  The  Christian  definition  of  souls  lost  to 
goodness  is — not  yet  found.  Does  not  that  sweetest  of 
all  parables — the  parable  of  the  lost  sheep — stretch  its 
lesson  into  the  great  hereafter,  covering  all  its  mountains 
and  valleys  with  the  sky  of  its  love  and  making  them 
echo  with  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  Shepherd  caring  for 
the  lost  one  more  than  for  the  ninety-and-nine  safely 
folded,  and  seeking  until  He  finds  ?  But  it  is  not  a 
question  of  texts — one  text  against  another  text,  it 
is  time  we  were  delivered  from  the  tyranny  of  texts. 
The  Christian  Gospel  does  not  rest  on  texts,  but  on  the 
character  of  God  made  known  through  Christ  to  the 
world  as  Eternal  Love  and  Fatherhood.  Whatever 
be  the  mystery  of  the  future — and  few  are  inclined  to 
map  out  final  issues  with  absolute  confidence — there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  most  Christian  disposition  is 
that  which  takes  counsel,  not  with  fear,  but  with  hope. 
It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  in  a  universe  over  which 
"  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  "  reigns, 
immortality  can  be  a  curse  even  to  a  small  minority  of 
souls.  While  there  may  and  must  be  many  scenes  and 
stages  of  discipline,  there  can  be  no  place  for  an  unending 
woe.  The  hope  of  the  final  and  universal  triumph  of 
good  in  the  creation,  and  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  all 
God's  children,  grows  as  naturally  out  of  the  Christian 


THE  LOVE  THAT  DOES  NOT  LET  GO     195 

ideas  and  the  Christian  spirit  as  the  harvest  of  autumn 
out  of  the  sowing  of  spring. 

It  gives  me  joy  to  preach  to  you  this  glorious  Gospel 
of  the  Blessed  God.  It  gives  me  joy  to  say  to  you  all 
this  Sunday  morning  :  In  the  midst  of  your  toil  and 
care,  in  all  the  temptations  and  dangers  which  beset 
your  life,  in  seasons  of  gladness  and  rejoicing,  and  in 
seasons  of  darkness  and  distress  when  the  sun  gives  no 
light  by  day  nor  the  moon  by  night  ;  when  you  are 
bearing  burdens  and  going  through  struggles  which 
only  Heaven  knows  ;  when  you  are  troubled  by  your  own 
unfaithfulness  and  failure,  and  by  the  unfaithfulness 
and  failure  of  your  fellows  ;  when  you  are  mourning 
for  your  dead  and  the  fear  of  the  unknown  future 
oppresses  you  ;  in  all  mortal  changes  and  in  the  change 
which  comes  but  once  for  all,  when  earthly  realities  are 
fading  into  shadows  and  the  shadows  of  the  invisible 
are  growing  into  realities,  in  the  hour  of  death  and  the 
day  of  judgment,  you  may  believe  and  be  persuaded 
that  neither  life  nor  death,  nor  things  present,  nor 
things  to  come,  nor  any  other  creation,  shall  be  able  to 
separate  you  from  the  love  of  God.  And  unto  Him 
who  hath  given  us  this  great  victory  over  our  fear  and 
doubt  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  unto  Him,  the 
Eternal  Lover  and  Father  and  Saviour  of  souls,  be  the 
praise  and  worship,  the  trust  and  obedience  of  His 
children,  world  without  end.     Amen. 


^  .•  t  <'  e7  tvt  -^  -r  V  vt        .    .  t^^^^lA  ^m^  .      /  f  \^  y 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE  ' 

"  Fire  shall  be  kept  burning  upon  the  altar  continually  ;   it  shall  not 
go  out." — Lev.  vi.  13. 

Ancient  religion  spoke  much  by  emblem  and  symbol. 
Words  were  not  its  sole  medium  of  communication 
with  men.  Its  faith  did  not  come  by  hearing  alone. 
All  the  senses  were  more  or  less  employed  as  a  door 
of  utterance,  and  observances  and  ceremonies  appealing 
to  the  imagination  were  used  to  awaken  and  direct 
devout  feeling  and  thought.  Its  symbolism  was  no 
mere  priestly  invention  and  device  :  it  sprang  from  and 
it  met  a  real  human  need  :  it  was  the  recognition  of  a 
natural  method  of  religious  culture  :  it  had  its  educa- 
tional significance  and  value,  and  was  far  from  being 
the  empty  show  it  must  often  have  appeared  to  be  to 
the  unprepared  and  unsympathetic  spectator.  It  was 
true  then  as  now, 

"  Words  there  are  none 

For  the  heart's  deepest  things," 

and  hence,  of  course,  ceremony  had  its  natural  and 
legitimate  place  in  the  vocabulary  of  religion  as  of  love. 

196 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         197 

Then,  as  now,  men  could  not  live  by  the  prophet's 
message  alone  :  the  aspirations  of  the  soul  could  not 
always  be  translated  into  the  dialect  of  the  under- 
standing :  spiritual  passion  demanded  other  vehicles  of 
expression  than  the  common  forms  of  speech  :  carved 
stone  and  wood,  altar  and  fire  and  sacrifice,  movement 
and  music  and  colour,  were  used  to  speak  the  word  of 
God  and  the  soul's  sincere  desire  ;  and  stately  services 
made  great  ideas  vivid  and  impressive  in  a  way  not 
otherwise  possible.  Then,  as  now,  things  material  and 
temporal  were  types  of  things  spiritual  and  eternal  ; 
and  religion  as  an  institution  was  made  to  develop,  to 
quicken  and  nourish  religion  as  a  life.  Even  the  most 
spiritual  and  best  of  ancient  religions  made  free  use  of 
this  symbolic  language  ;  spoke  to  its  children  in  acted 
parables,  and  exhibited  dramatically  the  lessons  which 
it  was  charged  to  convey.  It  loved  to  enact  its  instruc- 
tions, picturing  them  as  upon  a  canvas,  displaying  them 
as  upon  a  stage  from  generation  to  generation. 

The  offices  of  Hebrew  worship  have  long  since 
passed  from  literal  acceptance,  but  we  still  cherish 
some  of  them  as  emblems  and  figures  of  our  Christian 
experiences  and  thoughts.  Humanity  never  really 
forsakes  its  past.  The  days  of  its  years  are  bound 
each  to  each  in  natural  piety.  The  symbols  of  our 
ancestors  are  crystallised  in  the  words  we  utter.  Their 
rude  observances  are  the  true  though  humble  origin  of 
much   that  is  high  and  sacred  in  our  worship.     The 


198  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

Old  world  lives  in  the  New  ;  Judaism  and  Paganism 
survive  under  Christianity.  Through  all  the  stages  of 
religious  progress  men  still  go  ;  helping  themselves 
Godward  by  an  infinite  variety  of  symbols.  We  live 
by  symbols  and  link  ourselves  through  them  with  the 
Divine  more  than  many  of  us  ever  dream.  Our 
symbols  may  be  more  refined  and  spiritual,  but  they 
are  symbols  still  ;  and  they  come  not  to  destroy  but  to 
fulfil,  to  say  a  little  better  what  symbols  sought  to  say 
long  ago. 

The  ritual  custom  of  which  our  text  speaks  is  one 
beautiful  and  instructive  in  itself,  and  full  of  large 
suggestion — long  since  dead  as  to  the  letter,  but  living 
still  as  to  the  spirit.  The  allusion  is  to  the  altar  of 
burnt-offering  in  the  court  of  the  Tabernacle.  It  was 
concerning  this  altar  and  offering  that  the  instruction 
was  given  that  the  fire  should  ever  be  kept  burning 
and  not  be  suffered  to  go  out — an  enactment  well  fitted 
to  convey  and  to  make  clear  and  impressive  the  idea 
and  duty  of  maintaining  without  break  and  interruption 
the  worship  and  service  of  God  in  the  life  of  Israel  and 
in  the  life  of  every  Israelite. 

I.  In  that  temple  of  God  which  we  each  are,  upon 
the  altar  of  the  personal  heart  and  life,  the  fire  of 
devout  desire  and  affection  ought  ever  to  be  kept 
burning  and  never  be  allowed  to  go  out. 

It  is  said  to  be  the  prerogative  of  genius  to  light  its 
own  fire.     But  we  have  not  to  originate  the  flame  of 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         199 

spiritual  desire  in  ourselves.  Some  spark  from  the 
heavenly  altars  has  reached  each  one  of  us.  We  describe 
ourselves  at  times  as  seekers  after  God,  but  the  truth  is 
we  seek  God  because  He  first  seeks  us.  Our  upward 
yearnings  and  strivings  are  the  answering  movement  of 
our  spirits  to  the  touch  of  His  spirit.  It  is  an  old 
tradition  that  the  fire  which  burned  for  so  many  ages 
upon  the  altars  of  Israel  without  going  out  was  first 
conveyed  from  heaven.  The  Divine  aspiration  is 
itself  a  Divine  gift.  Inequalities  there  unquestionably 
are  even  in  this  Divine  gift  ;  some  have  what  is  called 
in  the  language  of  our  day  a  genius  for  religion,  and 
others  a  capacity  poorer  and  more  limited  ;  yet  it  is 
enough  that  the  spark  which  may  kindle  into  a  great 
fire  and  blaze  into  a  great  light,  and  warm  and  illu- 
minate every  chamber  of  our  being  and  every  part  of 
our  life,  is  never  wanting.  The  religious  man  is  the 
normal  man.  Religion  and  the  institutions  of  religion 
are  not  foreign  impositions  :  they  are  not  thrust  upon 
humanity  as  additions  from  without  ;  rather  do  they 
exist  by  the  very  exercise  of  man's  endowment  as  man. 
The  need  of  God  and  the  feeling  after  Him,  which  are 
the  root  and  support  of  all  religious  observances,  are 
not  instructed  into  existence  ;  they  are  not  of  human 
invention,  but  of  human  nature — that  deeper  nature 
which  is  begotten  not  made,  born  not  of  the  will  of 
the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God.  The 
appeal  of  religion  and  of  the  literature  which  interprets 


200  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

religion  is  to  the  intuitions  of  the  race.  We  first  feel 
within  us  what  we  discern  to  be  without  us.  The 
recognition  of  God  is  the  soul  unfolding  to  spiritual 
realities  and  relations.  We  call  Jesus,  Lord, — confess 
Him  to  be  the  Master  of  the  Divine  life  through  the 
awakening  in  ourselves  of  a  kindred  spirit  : 

''  Held  our  eyes  no  sunny  sheen, 
How  could  sunshine  e'er  be  seen  ? 
Dwelt  no  power  Divine  within  us. 
How  could  God's  Divineness  win  us  ?  " 

There  is  not  a  soul  anywhere,  we  would  fain 
believe,  who  has  not  the  Divine  witness  within  ;  life 
enough,  if  just  enough,  to  stir  now  and  again  some 
longing  after  Him  from  whom  we  come  and  to  whom 
we  go.  Outlaws  from  God  we  cannot  be,  even  if  we 
try.  From  His  presence  we  cannot  escape.  "  Thou 
art  nearer  to  me  than  thou  art  to  thyself,"  said  the  old 
oracle.  We  have  no  need  to  summon  from  a  distant 
throne  the  God  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  He  stands 
at  the  door  and  knocks,  and  His  Spirit  is  ever  seeking 
a  resting-place  and  home  in  the  deep  places  of  each 
human  heart  and  life.  It  was  a  saying  of  ancient 
wisdom,  "  No  one  ever  passed  from  youth  to  age  in 
unbelief,"  and  those  times  were  what  we  describe  as 
Pagan  times.  It  must  be  even  more  true  of  those 
born  in  the  age  of  Christ  and  in  lands  which  we  call 
Christendom.  The  Heavenly  Call  does  not  find  us 
prodigals    in    a    far    country,    sensualists    at    Corinth, 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         201 

idolaters  at  Ephesus,  or  agnostics  at  Athens  ;  but 
members  for  the  most  part  of  Christian  households, 
with  our  nature  more  or  less  awakened  and  directed 
to  the  highest  good,  and  prepared  for  the  prayer  which 
is  the  heart  of  religion  by  the  silent  influences  of 
Christian  heredity  and  environment,  through  the  quiet 
processes  of  gradual  growth,  and  not  through  the 
shock  of  strange  experiences,  or  by  any  whirlwind  of 
revivalistic  agitation.  We  hardly  need  to  be  con- 
verted, or  ought  not  to  need — only  to  be  awakened 
and  kept  awake.  We  are  in  one  sense  beyond  our 
own  recall  Christian  souls,  and  however  far  we  may 
wander  as  the  years  gather  upon  us  we  can  in  nowise 
become  pagan  reprobates.  We  may  fall  into  unbelief 
born  of  neglect  and  worldliness,  but  we  cannot  guard 
it  ;  all  the  deeper  movements  and  experiences  of  life 
will  be  constantly  forcing  us  out  of  it.  Just  when  we 
feel  ourselves  comfortable  and  at  peace  in  it,  secure 
from  all  spiritual  intrusion  and  visitation, 

"There  flits  across  the  soul  a  subtle  something, 
A  sunset  touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell ;  some  one's  death  ; 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides  ; 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  souls"  : 

and  while  we  muse  the  fire  burns  ;  our  hearts  tremble 
and  bow  ;  our  spirits  feel  the  pressure  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  ;  we  again  find  our  souls  ;  piety  becomes  once 


202  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

more  a  passion,  and  the  Cross  of  the  Christian  sacrifice 
no  longer  our  shame  but  our  glory. 

Let  men  and  women  trifle  and  forget  as  they  may, 
live  as  if  they  thought  prayer  were  but  wasted  breath, 
and  the  cry  of  the  world's  penitents  and  saints  for 
pardon  and  strength  and  communion  with  the  Eternal, 
were  but  the  unmeaning  moan  and  wail  of  morbid  souls  ; 
yet  even  they  have  their  deeper  moments — self-reveal- 
ing moments  when  they  are  filled  with  uneasy  feeling 
and  a  craving  for  something  they  miss  ;  when  their 
apathy  is  smitten  through  and  the  smouldering  fire  of 
spiritual  desire  is  blown  into  flame,  and  their  life  shows 
some  dim  sign  and  prophecy  of  its  great  change  and 
transfiguration  into  a  temple  of  God. 

Few  there  be  who  have  not  gone  so  far  as  this  in 
the  devout  life  ;  but  a  multitude  which  no  man  can 
number,  within  as  well  as  without  all  the  churches, 
have  never  gone  any  further  just  for  the  want  of 
earnestness  to  fulfil  the  conditions  and  obey  the  laws 
of  the  continual  increase  of  spiritual  power  and  fervour. 
Amid  the  stress  and  rush  of  life  their  sense  of  God 
fades,  is  little  more  than  a  pathetic  reminiscence  or  a 
vague  dream,  a  reality  rather  to  memory  and  hope  than 
a  living  experience  —  the  deepest  of  their  personal 
relations.  Feeble,  flickering,  fading  is  the  holy  fire 
upon  the  altar  of  their  hearts.  Often  and  long  is  it 
left  untended  and  unfed  ;  and  because  of  this  neglect 
they  are  in  constant  danger  of  slipping  into  irreligion, 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         203 

becoming  cold  and  careless  in  prosperity,  hard  and 
bitter  in  adversity,  the  victims  and  not  the  masters  of 
tempting  circumstances.  "  It  has  been  the  greatest 
error  of  my  life,"  said  a  great  man  in  his  old  age,  "  not 
learning  to  avail  myself  as  I  should  have  done  of  the 
help  of  prayer."  And  what  moral  loss  and  failure 
proceed  from  this  neglect !  It  is  an  ethical  as  well  as 
a  religious  mistake.  Superficial  are  we  in  all  our 
observation  and  experience  of  life  if  we  fail  to  see  the 
moral  lift  of  religious  worship  ;  how  goodness  and 
integrity  are  hallowed  and  protected  by  intense  religious 
feeling — regarded  and  cherished  as  part  of  the  service 
we  owe  to  God  ;  and  how  faith  instead  of  being  a  sub- 
stitute for  right  living  is  in  truth  its  supreme  aid  and 
inspiration,  moving  one  to  greater  effort  and  attain- 
ment, and  preserving  and  nourishing  in  the  soul  those 
finer  virtues  and  graces  which  are  the  flower  and  crown 
of  human  character. 

The  fire  on  the  altar  of  Israel,  though  kindled  from 
heaven,  had  to  be  kept  constantly  burning  by  natural 
and  human  means.  The  priests  had  to  lay  wood  on 
the  altar  every  morning,  and,  like  the  vestal  virgins 
of  Rome,  to  watch  day  and  night  with  sleepless  care 
lest  the  holy  flame  should  die  out.  It  is  a  parable  of 
which  the  spiritual  experience  of  mankind  writes  large 
the  meaning.  The  religious  sentiment,  which  is  an 
essential  element  of  human  nature,  needs  cultivation 
as  certainly  as  the  power  to  think,  or  the  love  of  the 


204  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

beautiful,  or  our  affection  for  parents  and  friends. 
The  Divine  order  for  the  nourishment  and  support 
of  our  spiritual  life  is,  indeed,  analogous  to  that  by 
which  our  natural  life  is  maintained.  The  spiritual 
life  is  quickened  by  God,  but  its  preservation  depends 
on  our  use  of  means.  The  soul,  like  the  body,  re- 
quires to  be  nourished,  that  its  love  of  God  may  be 
renewed  and  made  to  burn  with  greater  intensity. 
Wise  men,  therefore,  have  always  made  much  of 
observance  and  custom  and  habit  in  religion,  in  order 
to  prevent  the  fading  and  dying  out  of  the  spiritual 
life.  And  what  was  true  of  the  childhood  of  the 
world  is  also  true  of  its  manhood.  There  are  some 
things  which  we  do  not  outgrow.  We  may  suffer 
them  to  fall  into  disuse  ;  in  our  indifference  we  may 
neglect  them  ;  in  our  vanity  we  may  cast  them  aside  ; 
but  we  do  not  outgrow  them.  They  are  still  necessary 
to  healthy  growth  and  progress.  It  is  a  sound  con- 
servatism which  makes  us  unwilling  to  give  up  any- 
thing which  the  religious  experience  of  humanity  has 
found  necessary  or  helpful  to  the  maintenance  of  its 
holiest  and  best  life,  and  which  moves  us  to  the 
regular  and  faithful  performance  of  those  devotional 
uses,  private  and  public,  that  the  best  of  men  in  all 
lands  and  ages  have  always  regarded  to  be  essential 
to  the  very  existence  of  the  holy  fire  in  human  souls. 

In  the  great  mercy  of  God  few  of  us  have  ever  gone 
so   far   astray   as   St.   Augustine  did,  yet  with  all  our 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         205 

hearts  we  can  join  him  as  he  cries  out  :  "  Too  late, 
too  little  have  I  sought  Thee,  O  Thou  Loveliness  of 
ancient  days."  Again  and  again  do  we  require  to  be 
told  to  repent  and  to  do  the  first  works  ;  to  stir  up 
the  gift  within  us  ;  to  exercise  ourselves  unto  godliness  ; 
to  take  up  neglected  and  rejected  habits  of  worship  ; 
to  guard  and  feed  the  Divine  fire  in  that  Temple  of 
God  which  we  are — until  its  warmth  and  brightness 
are  diffused  as  a  permanent  consecration  through  our 
whole  being,  touching  and  kindling  every  faculty,  and 
giving  a  steady  and  radiant  glow  to  every  element  and 
act  of  life.  Let  us  not  dream  that  an  occasional  devout 
wish  or  devout  mood  will  ever  make  a  devout  character 
and  life.  To  win  and  to  keep  the  devotional  mind 
and  spirit  we  must  choose  and  follow  regular  and 
systematic  means  of  discipline  and  culture  ;  we  must 
habituate  ourselves  to  particular  ofllices  and  acts  of 
devotion  just  as  we  do  to  regular  meals,  although  we 
are  not  always  hungry  at  those  fixed  times  ;  we  must 
meditate  and  pray  till  devout  aspiration  becomes 
devout  temper,  and  devout  acts  devout  habits  ;  we 
must  cultivate  and  cherish  spiritual  affections  until 
they  become  part  of  the  basis  of  character  ;  we  must 
exercise  our  faith  till  it  ceases  to  be  a  mere  sentiment 
or  opinion  and  becomes  a  living,  burning,  purifying 
conviction  and  enthusiam — a  fire  in  the  soul  consuming 
everything  there  that  is  unworthy,  a  light  of  life  like 
the  brightness  of  day  in  our  redeemed  existence.     We 


2o6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

must  wait  upon  God  more  than  they  that  watch  for  the 
morning,  until  the  Divine  Hfe  within  us  is  estabhshed 
in  the  soul,  has  gained  its  rightful  place  and  supremacy, 
and  become  in  the  highest  sense  our  natural  life  and 
our  one  life,  changing  everything  we  do,  all  our 
common  concerns  and  duties,  into  its  image  from 
glory  to  glory. 

There  is  no  royal  road  to  anything — least  of  all  to 
the  divinest  things  of  life.  Intimacy  with  God,  the 
communion  of  the  Spirit,  faith,  hope,  love,  reverence, 
spiritual  insight,  peace  and  joy  in  the  Eternal  Will — 
these  things  cannot  be  purchased  with  easy  and  in- 
different living.  Method  and  habit  are  just  as  natural 
and  necessary  and  valuable  in  religion  and  in  the 
development  and  training  of  religious  character  as  in 
any  other  of  our  human  relations  and  interests.  It  is 
impossible,  we  well  know,  to  possess  power  or  spirit  of 
any  kind  without  the  habitual  use  of  its  accompanying 
forms.  All  our  higher  faculties,  affections,  and  tastes 
need  constant  nourishment  and  exercise  ;  and  the 
higher  they  are  the  more  regular  and  sustained  must 
be  the  exercise  of  them  in  the  practice  that  makes 
perfect.  To  produce  any  activity  that  is  meant  to  be 
a  continuous  and  constant  element  in  life  there  must 
be  unremitting  attention  to  the  conditions  of  its 
development  and  use.  The  masters  of  music  are 
always  in  training  ;  they  not  only  give  years  of  labori- 
ous   study  to    the    discipline    and    education    of   their 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         207 

musical  power  and  taste,  but  after  all  their  preparatory 
studies  they  do  not  neglect  the  daily  practice.  But 
with  regard  to  the  devout  spirit  and  life  we  are  slow, 
almost  reluctant,  to  learn  that  we  must  make  much  of 
method  and  habit,  and  that  without  persistent  fidelity 
there  can  be  no  attainment.  We  know  and  are  per- 
suaded that  to  attain  any  other  kind  of  excellence,  to 
excel  as  students  of  physical  science,  as  painters, 
singers,  pianists,  vioHnists,  we  must  give  time  and 
thought  to  it,  resolute  purpose  and  steady  practice  ; 
but  somehow  we  imagine  that  excellence  in  a  life 
infinitely  higher  than  the  scientific  or  artistic  life  does 
not  require  any  such  earnest  and  ceaseless  endeavour  ; 
that  the  finest  powers  and  affections  of  our  human 
being — the  capacity  of  religious  inspiration,  the  power 
to  draw  near  unto  God  and  to  enter  into  the  com- 
munion of  His  Spirit  :  that  these  powers,  compared 
with  which  genius  in  music  or  painting  or  science  is 
but  a  small  thing,  may  be  preserved  and  nourished 
into  strength  and  beauty  without  the  systematic  care 
and  culture  which  other  and  lower  faculties  and  tastes 
and  any  mechanical  or  professional  success  require 
and  demand.  Fools  that  we  are,  and  blind  !  Steady 
discipline  and  exercise  are  not  more  necessary  to  our 
physical  and  intellectual  life  than  they  are  to  our 
spiritual  life.  What  would  the  body  be  and  what  the 
mind  if  they  were  treated  as  we  treat  our  souls — left 
to  accident  and  mood   and    impulse,  without    regular 


2o8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

times  and  seasons,  means  and  ministries  ?  It  is  our 
finest  feelings  which  require  the  most  constant  cul- 
tivation and  care.  It  is  our  noblest  powers  that  need 
the  largest  and  most  uninterrupted  culture. 

*'  Our  sacred  selves  !      Have  we 
No  charge  to  keep  o'er  this  divinity 
That  lives  w^ithin  us  ?  " 

We  often  hear  men  speak  about  the  spirit  of  prayer 
as  being  enough.  Yes  !  it  is  enough  ;  but  how  are 
we  to  have  and  to  keep  the  spirit  of  prayer  save  as  we 
have  and  keep  the  spirit  of  knowledge,  the  spirit  of  art, 
the  spirit  of  love,  or  the  spirit  of  anything  else,  save  by 
fulfilling  the  conditions  of  having  and  keeping  it  "?  In 
pleading  for  devotional  observances  and  habits,  I  am 
pleading  the  cause  of  the  spirit.  The  men  who  may  be 
said  to  pray  without  ceasing,  who  live  almost  uncon- 
sciously in  an  atmosphere  spiritual  and  vital,  and  to 
whom  God  is  the  Great  Companion  of  their  days,  are 
not  the  men  who  slight  the  habits  of  prayer  ;  and  they 
— the  men  who  have  mastered  the  art  of  living  with 
God — are  the  only  persons  who  can  speak  with  any 
real  authority  on  this  subject.  One  of  them  says  : 
"  Evening,  morning,  and  at  noon  will  I  cry  unto  Thee." 
Jesus  Christ  was  full  of  the  spirit  of  prayer.  His  heart 
was  a  shrine  of  unceasing  worship,  and  His  life  was  a 
constant  walk  with  God  ;  yet  even  He  felt  the  need  of 
method  and  habit,  and  obeyed    the  law  which  moves 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         209 

the  devout  soul  to  seek  occasions  of  formal  and  con- 
crete expression  of  its  spiritual  passion.  He  who  lived 
in  unbroken  communion  of  spirit  with  His  Father 
would  yet  spend  whole  nights  in  prayer,  and  make 
it  His  custom  to  go  into  the  synagogue  every 
Sabbath  day. 

It  is  often  made  a  subject  of  complaint  and  wonder 
that  there  are  nowadays  so  few  great  believers  and 
great  saints,  few  to  whom  the  highest  things  are  the 
most  real  and  commanding  things,  few  who  live  in  the 
world  of  spiritual  reality  as  if  it  were  the  home  of  their 
spirits,  and  to  whom  communion  with  God  is  the 
simplest  and  most  central  fact  of  their  life.  It  is 
impossible  to  say  how  far  the  complaint  is  a  just  one  ; 
but  if  genuine  spiritual  excellence  is  a  rare  thing  in  our 
modern  world,  and  if  in  these  passing  days  we  have 
lost  the  sense  of  the  Invisible  and  the  secret  of  rest  in 
God,  we  can  easily  give  the  explanation  of  it  all.  It 
can  only  be  that  we  are  neglecting  to  feed  the  fires 
of  consecration  and  devotion,  that  we  are  growing 
indifferent  to  the  due  nurture  of  the  spiritual  life  and 
to  all  sustained  spiritual  exercises,  that  we  are  not 
keeping  ourselves  subject  to  religious  inspiration — 
not  stirring  ourselves  up  to  take  and  keep  hold  of  God, 
not  troubling  ourselves  to  master  the  art  of  living  with 
Him,  as  children  with  their  Father.  While  we  know 
that  we  have  to  strive  to  be  learned  men  and  musical 
men,  and  successful  business  and  professional  men,  we 

14 


2IO  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

somehow  think  that  reHgion  can  be  had  without  taking 
any  pains,  easily  and  cheaply.  We  are  fond  of  quoting 
the  poet's  words,  "  God  can  be  had  for  the  asking,"  as 
if  that  asking  were  merely  the  asking  of  the  lips  and 
did  not  include  the  asking  of  the  heart  and  will,  the 
asking  of  the  whole  being  and  life — as  if  it  did  not 
mean  all  the  seeking  and  striving,  all  the  habitudes  and 
quietudes,  all  the  experiences  of  place  and  time,  all  the 
moral  and  spiritual  discipline  and  culture,  all  the  self- 
denial  and  self-training  and  self-devotion  which  the 
saints,  ancient  and  modern,  Hebrew  and  Christian, 
Catholic  and  Puritan,  knew  so  well. 

And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  large  part  of  the 
decline  of  religious  faith  about  which  we  hear  so  much 
to-day — the  loss  of  assured  religious  conviction,  is  due 
not  so  much  to  the  disturbing  effects  of  new  know- 
ledge, to  honest  questionings  and  doubts,  to  serious 
intellectual  perplexities,  but  to  far  more  commonplace 
causes  ;  even  to  the  hurry  and  unrest  in  which  so  many 
of  us  live,  to  our  over-activity  in  the  ways  of  business 
and  pleasure  which  reacts  in  weakness,  and  to  the 
gradual  loss  of  those  religious  habits  which  are  necessary 
to-day  as  yesterday  to  keep  alive  and  ardent  the  holy 
fire  in  our  hearts.  Without  uncharitableness,  it  may 
be  said  that  much  of  our  scepticism  and  unbelief  is 
simply  the  scepticism  of  neglected  souls  and  the  un- 
belief of  world-worn  hearts.  It  is  often  remarked  that, 
in  our  distracted  and  over-crowded  life,  it  requires  much 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         211 

effort  to  keep  up  our  friendships  with  one  another. 
But  think  you  it  requires  less  effort  to  keep  up  our 
sense  of  intimacy  with  God,  to  know  Him  with  that 
knowledge  which  is  Eternal  Life,  to  gain  insight  into 
His  ways,  to  love  Him,  and  to  enjoy  what  the  Bene- 
diction calls  "the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit"? 
Many  of  us,  alas  1  do  not  take  time  to  believe  in  God. 
By  our  unresting  action  in  earthly  affairs,  by  our 
neglect  of  meditation  and  prayer,  we  build  up  around 
ourselves  the  very  conditions  of  unbelief,  and  thus  the 
sense  of  God  fades  out  of  our  hearts,  and  all  vital 
recognition  of  God  disappears  from  our  lives.  We 
cease  to  tend  and  feed  the  altar-fires,  and  in  some  hour 
of  critical  trial  we  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  the  very 
capacity  for  receiving  religious  inspiration  and  religious 
comfort  has  almost  perished,  and  we  are  ready  to  take 
up  the  moan  of  the  dying  Paracelsus  in  Robert 
Browning's  poem  : 

"  Love,  hope,  fear,  faith — these  make  humanity  ; 
These  are  its  sign  and  note  and  character, 
And  these  I  have  lost,  gone  from  me  for  ever." 

Of  course,  we  have  lost  our  religion.  Faith,  hope,  and 
love  would  not  be  worth  having,  if  they  could  be  kept 
with  such  neglect  to  guard  the  holy  fire. 

In  these  modern  days,  when  men  are  so  much 
given  to  commending  industry  and  enterprise,  and 
the  tendency  prevails  to  undervalue  both  the  private 


212  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

and  public  exercises  of  religion,  we  are  often  reminded 
that  to  work  is  to  pray,  and  many  of  us  run  away 
with  a  half-truth  as  if  it  were  a  whole  truth.  To 
live  and  work  in  such  a  great  way  that  work  becomes 
a  worship  and  life  a  prayer,  there  must  also  be  the 
prayer  of  quiet  thought  and  aspiration,  the  prayer  of 
the  silent  hour  and  of  the  heart  which  invokes  the 
Divine  blessing.  It  is  a  serious  fact,  shown  by  too 
many  examples  in  every  community,  that  the  most 
active  and  enterprising  men,  and  not  only  in  business 
and  politics,  but  in  philanthropy  and  in  ecclesiastical, 
evangelistic,  and  missionary  affairs,  are  often  the  men 
who  have  the  least  personal  life.  So  driven  are  they, 
so  eagerly  responsive  to  all  manner  of  good  causes, 
that  they  have  no  time  for  deepening  the  inward  life, 
no  time  to  lie  passive  and  open  to  spiritual  influences, 
no  time  for  the  musing  which  makes  the  fire  burn, 
no  time  for  the  reading  which  kindles  the  soul  with 
great  thoughts,  no  time  for  breathing  together  the 
atmosphere  of  worship,  and  no  time  for  the  lonely 
communion  with  God  which  is  so  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  replenishing  of  the  spiritual  energy  which  noble 
and  effective  life  and  service  both  in  the  world  and 
in  the  church  demand. 

It  is  told  of  Wilberforce  that  when  an  over-zealous 
friend  asked  him  about  the  state  of  his  soul,  he 
replied  :  "  I  have  been  so  busy  thinking  about  poor 
slaves    that    I    have    forgotten    that    I    had    a    soul." 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         213 

He,  perhaps,  could  afford  to  take  for  a  time  that 
attitude,  for  he  had  stored  up  in  himself  the  results 
of  years  of  severe  spiritual  discipline  and  culture. 
But  his  words,  or  words  like  them,  are  often  used  by 
persons  to  justify  philanthropic  activities  which  leave 
little  or  no  leisure  in  their  crowded  days  for  the  quiet 
thought  which  their  needy  souls  require,  and  their 
work  also,  in  order  to  make  it  nobly  fruitful.  The 
work  cannot  be  better  than  the  workman,  and  what 
we  accomplish  depends  ultimately  upon  what  we 
are.  To  give  we  must  have  ;  to  do  we  must  be. 
There  is  a  distinction,  sometimes  very  apparent, 
between  the  social  work  of  those  whose  personal 
moral  and  spiritual  life  is  in  quality  superficial  and 
feeble,  and  the  work  of  strong,  rich,  aspiring  souls, 
ever  striving  to  keep  close  their  connection  with  the 
Eternal  Source  of  inspiration  and  strength.  The 
deepening  of  the  devotional  spirit  and  the  best  work 
in  the  field  of  religion  are  connected  as  cause  and 
sequence.  What  is  unfriendly  to  the  first  is  unfriendly 
to  the  other.  To  extend  religion  in  any  wise  and 
beneficent  way  we  need  to  deepen  it,  and  we  cannot 
deepen  it  much  in  our  fellows  until  we  first  have  its 
life  deepened  in  our  own  souls.  The  mind  to  work 
any  truly  great  work  is  ever  the  mind  of  faith — the 
uplifted,  illuminated,  and  inspired  mind.  Without  it 
we  may  have  much  running  to  and  fro  and  spasms  of 
bustling  and   noisy  activity,  but  little  of  that  service 


2  14  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

which  leaves  a  deep  and  abiding  impression  upon  the 
life  of  a  community  or  a  generation.  The  persistent 
living  in  spiritual  realities  is  required,  especially  of 
ministers  of  religion.  To  do  the  priest's  work,  to 
bring  men  to  realise  the  presence  of  God  through  the 
influence  of  public  worship  and  preaching,  one  must 
have  true  priestly  power,  a  rare  and  costly  gift  which 
cannot  be  conferred  in  any  outward  way,  but  without 
which  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels  will  be  little 
more  than  the  sounding  brass  against  which  finer  souls 
soon  close  their  ears.  To  do  the  prophet's  work  one 
must  have  the  prophet's  inspiration,  and  be  constantly 
preparing  himself  to  receive  it  more  and  more.  In- 
deed, whatever  our  work  and  service,  and  whatever 
our  ideas  and  methods,  our  fundamental  requirement 
is  a  disciplined  sensitiveness  to  the  spiritual  realities  of 
life,  the  temper  of  faith,  the  spirit  steeped  in  sentiments 
of  reverence,  trust,  and  love,  the  kindled  and  glowing 
heart.  It  is  far  easier  to  settle  or  unsettle  men's 
opinions  and  beliefs,  to  interest  them  in  theological 
and  social  problems,  and  to  make  them  think  with  this 
or  that  sect  or  party,  than  it  is  to  undermine  their  in- 
difference, to  quicken  their  cold  and  languid  souls,  and  to 
kindle  in  their  hearts  the  altar-fire  of  worship  ;  and  to  do 
this  we  ourselves  must  be  aglow  and  aflame  with  the  life 
of  God.  We  must  be  men  of  aspiration  and  inspiration. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  culture  of  the  devo- 
tional life  is  a  thing  of   the  past.     Many,  I   confess, 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         215 

behave  as  if  they  believed  this  ignorant  and  foolish 
statement  to  be  true.  We  are  all  too  fond  in  our 
egotism  and  pride  of  exalting  our  personal  preferences, 
inclinations,  and  habits  as  if  they  were  the  sure  indica- 
tion and  prophecy  of  the  tendency  and  movement  of  a 
whole  age.  But  what  we  may  have  come  to  neglect, 
renounce,  or  despise,  and  perhaps  not  to  our  advantage, 
men  may  still  want,  and  need  it  all  the  more  even  when 
they  do  not  want  it.  Methods  of  religious  culture 
may  be  revised,  but  we  cannot  dispense  with  the 
practice  itself  without  wronging  ourselves,  because  we 
have  that  in  our  souls  and  in  our  lives  which  needs 
the  inspiration  it  gives  and  guards.  Theories  and 
customs  of  prayer  may  change,  but  our  need  of  God 
and  of  communion  with  Him  does  not  grow  less. 
Instead  of  less  meditation,  less  prayer,  less  worship  in 
our  days,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  need  more  for  the 
new  and  larger  order  of  life  and  service  which  is  swiftly 
coming.  The  old  paths  here  are  after  all  the  paths  of  pro- 
gress. To  forsake  them  is  to  go  downward.  The  devout 
spirit  is  too  indispensable  to  complete  character  and  life 
to  be  slighted,  and  too  necessary  to  the  finer  humanities 
to  be  left  untended.  The  inspirations  of  religion  are 
required  to  give  wings  and  feet  to  our  ideals  of  justice 
and  brotherly  kindness  and  service.  Coleridge  sang, 
"  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best  "  ; 

but  we  may  also  say  with  equal  truth, 

"  He  loveth  best  who  prayeth  best." 


2i6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

Many  in  these  days  who  eulogise  the  devotion  of 
Jesus  to  the  service  of  mankind  forget  that  from  the 
beginning  to  the  close  of  His  earthly  ministry  He 
drew  strength  for  that  service  from  communion  with 
God.  "  I  live  by  the  Father,"  He  once  said,  and  in 
these  words  we  have  the  secret  of  His  life  and  work, 
of  His  unwearying  self-devotion  to  the  cause  of  man 
and  God. 

*'  Forasmuch    as    they  who  love,  and  lean  in  love  upon   His 

breast, 
Reap  the  richer  bliss  of  being,  drink  the  dews  of  a  deeper 

rest, 
Rise  renewed  in  soul  and  sinew,  greeting  life  with  a  keener 

zest, 
I  will  seek  Him." 

And  now,  before  we  proceed  further,  let  us  ask 
ourselves,  how  burns  the  holy  fire  in  our  souls, — 
that  inner  life  of  reverence  and  love,  trust  and  con- 
secration and  loyalty  towards  God  which  constitutes 
the  religious  spirit  and  creates  the  truly  religious 
character  ?  Are  we  sustaining  in  ourselves  the 
devotion  and  enthusiasm  which  nourish  the  spiritual 
life  ?  It  is  so  easy  to  become  undevout,  to  grow 
insensible  and  callous  to  all  higher  experiences,  so  easy 
to  become  indifferent  and  careless  and  worldly.  We 
have  just  to  neglect  ourselves  and  to  let  things  go. 
Fire  requires  fuel — left  to  itself  it  soon  burns  low 
and  burns  out.     The  God   with    whom   we    have   to 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         217 

do  cannot  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be  without  our 
steady  co-operation.  Devout  habit  on  our  part  is 
necessary  to  devout  character.  What  about  our 
habits  .'*     The  poet  tells  us  that 

"  We  cannot  kindle  when  we  will 
The  fire  which  in  the  heart  resides," 

but  we  also  know  right  well  that  the  fulfilling  of  the 
conditions  on  which  the  kindling  depends  is  not 
independent  of  our  wills.  It  is  not  the  passive,  idle 
mind  and  heart  which  God  inspires.  We  receive  not 
because  we  ask  not.  Unto  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given.  Do  we  prepare  ourselves  to  meet  God  and 
to  receive  His  inspiration  .''  Is  it  our  daily  effort  to 
keep  the  soul  sensitive  at  every  point  to  Divine 
influences  }  I  preach  no  formalism,  but  I  plead  with 
you  to  give  your  religion  the  first  place  in  your  care, 
and  not  to  allow  prayer  to  become  a  lost  art.  I  plead 
for  the  quiet  hour,  the  quiet  Sunday,  the  quiet 
meditation,  the  quiet  prayer  that  you  may  be  pre- 
served calm  and  strong,  amid  the  whirl  of  things, 
that  the  sense  of  God  may  warm  and  deepen  into 
communion  with  God,  and  that  the  holy  fire  on  the 
soul's  altar  may  never  go  out. 

2.  In  that  Temple  of  God  we  call  the  family,  on 
the  altar  of  the  Home,  the  holy  fire  ought  ever  to 
be  kept  burning  and  never  be  suffered  to  go  out. 
Religion  is   necessary  to  the   home.     A   house  where 


2i8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

we  merely  lodge  and  eat  together  is  not  a  home  ;  and 
a  home,  though  it  may  have  all  things  else — love, 
friendship,  comfort,  refinement — does  not  fulfil  its  true 
idea  unless  the  influence  of  real  religion  is  adequately 
there.  To  preserve  family  life  from  decay,  to  give 
strength  and  beauty  to  the  domestic  relations,  to  bind 
the  home  together  and  make  its  circle  a  unit  and  a 
source  of  elevating  influence,  nothing  helps  so  much  as 
simple  and  sincere  devotional  usages  and  habits.  A 
worldly  home  cannot  be  a  deeply  united  and  happy 
one.  There  must  be  a  common  life  in  God  and 
union  there.  The  best  we  can  do  for  our  children  is 
to  create  an  atmosphere  in  the  home  that  is  favourable 
to  reverence  and  faith.  For  they  grow  chiefly  like  air- 
plants  by  what  they  absorb  from  the  atmosphere  around 
them.  If  allowed  to  grow  up  in  a  non-worshipful 
atmosphere  they  will  be  injured  for  life.  Herbert 
Spencer  has  enriched  our  educational  vocabulary  with 
the  phrase  "  complete  life,"  and  the  quiet  and  gradual 
awakening  and  culture  of  the  religious  affections  are 
as  necessary,  yea,  more  necessary,  to  the  complete 
life  of  our  youths  and  maidens  than  any  physical  or 
mental  training.  And  yet  how  this  side  of  life  is 
neglected  !  We  send  our  children  to  the  best  schools 
that  can  be  found  and  give  them  the  best  education, 
but  that  for  which  all  other  things  exist  is  slighted — 
the  life  which  relates  them  to  God.  With  all  their 
education  they  are  not  educated  into  the  knowledge  of 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         219 

their  childhood  to  God — and  their  character  suffers. 
They  go  out  into  the  world  with  little  reverence  for 
anything,  and  often  quite  unprepared  to  meet  the 
critical  experiences  of  early  manhood  and  womanhood. 
In  the  reaction  from  the  old  coercive  methods,  and 
from  the  hypocrisy,  formalism,  and  cant  which  too 
frequently  accompanied  them,  we  are  in  danger  of  the 
opposite  extreme.  A  more  or  less  refined  materialism, 
a  comfortable  paganism,  is  creeping  into  family  life 
almost  everywhere — in  Scotland  as  much  as  anywhere. 
If  one  single  cause  has  been  more  powerful  than 
another  in  the  production  of  the  prevailing  religious 
indifference,  it  is,  I  am  persuaded,  the  neglect  of  family 
discipline  and  family  religion.  The  interest  of  young 
people  in  the  Church  of  Christ  must  be  largely 
quickened  and  nourished  at  home.  We  cannot 
wonder  that  so  many  grow  up  indifferent  to  it.  They 
have  seen  for  years  nothing  more  readily  thrust  aside 
for  the  sake  of  passing  comfort  and  convenience  than 
the  claims  of  those  larger  associations  and  interests 
which  the  Church  represents  in  human  society.  I 
plead  for  nothing  unnatural  and  artificial  when  I  plead 
for  the  culture  of  the  ideal  and  religious  side  of  our 
home-relations,  and  for  some  occasional  recognition  of 
God  in  a  simple  and  reverent  way  when  we  are  to- 
gether as  families.  Let  us  associate  prayer  and  worship 
with  the  first  thoughts  of  our  children,  with  their 
earliest  memories  and  earliest  affections.     Let  us  keep 


220  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

the    holy    fire    always    burning    upon  the  altar  of  the 
Home — the  divinest  altar  that  has  ever  been  built. 

3.  In  that  Temple  of  God  which  we  call  the 
Church,  upon  the  altars  of  our  sanctuaries,  the  holy 
fire  ought  ever  to  be  kept  burning  and  never  be 
suffered  to  go  out.  We  shall  not  quarrel  about  words 
and  phrases,  and  mistake  form  for  substance  and 
semblance  for  reality,  but  it  is  prayer  and  the  prayer- 
spirit  which  make  a  Church  out  of  a  congregation. 
Gatherings  together  to  hear  argument  and  rhetoric, 
anecdote  and  music,  may  be  good  in  their  way,  and 
serve  some  useful  purpose,  but  they  are  not  such 
gatherings  together  as  make  one  feel  and  say,  "  The 
Lord  is  in  His  holy  temple."  To  make  the  attraction 
of  the  Church  pleasure  and  entertainment  must  in 
time  foster  an  ideal  of  the  Church  which  will  destroy 
its  whole  spiritual  power  and  influence.  Many  of  the 
churches  are  going  the  wrong  way  to  recover  their  lost 
hold  upon  the  people.  They  will  best  meet  and  adjust 
themselves  to  the  conditions  of  modern  life  by  being 
made  to  stand  for  more  not  less  as  religious  institutions, 
as  centres  of  Christian  worship  and  teaching  and  inspira- 
tion.   We  must  not  offer  "  strange  fire  "  unto  the  Lord. 

"  He  seeks  not  that  His  altars 
Blaze,  careless  how,  so  that  they  do  but  blaze." 

We  must  look  sharply  at  all  our  devices  and  methods. 
We  must  commit  religious  work  to  religious  means  ; 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         221 

use  no  arts  in  it  and  accept  no  substitutes  for  it. 
It  is  for  a  real  revival  of  real  religion  we  must  pray 
and  work.  Sensuous  excitement,  however  contagious, 
must  not  be  mistaken  for  the  Holy  Spirit's  influence. 
It  is  the  heavenly  fire  and  the  heavenly  fire  alone  that 
we  must  keep  burning  upon  our  altars  and  never 
suffer  to  go  out. 

It  seems  to  me  what  we  most  need  in  our  land  and 
day  is  an  order  of  churches  which  unite  great  spiritu- 
ality and  deep  devotional  power  with  pure  and  high 
intelligence,  and  can  be  satisfied  with  naught  but 
reality  and  truth  ;  Churches  of  the  Reconciliation,  we 
might  call  them,  for  they  would  stand  for  the  union  of 
the  devout  and  fervent  spirit  with  the  open  and  en- 
lightened mind,  and  with  the  whole  scope  and  temper 
of  modern  Christian  thought. 

The  older  churches  of  Christendom  have  nearly  all 
been  highly  favourable  to  the  worshipful  spirit,  but 
they  have  not  been  always  favourable,  often,  indeed, 
unfavourable  and  hostile,  to  the  spirit  of  truth.  They 
have  not  much  cared  for  truth  as  truth,  which 
has  been  too  often  sacrificed  to  the  interests  of 
organisation  and  to  ecclesiastical  cohesion.  What 
Dr.  Jowett  called  the  great  error  of  Jesuitism — 
the  separation  of  religion  from  truth — is  not  an  error 
peculiar  to  Jesuitism.  We  find  it  in  nearly  all  the 
churches.  They  do  not  encourage  devotion  to  truth 
as  truth,  and  in  the  freest  of  them  their  teachers  are 


222  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

too  often  tongue-tied  or  double-tongued — compelled 
to  hide  their  real  thought  and  inspiration  behind  a 
mask  of  mediaeval  or  conventional  language. 

What  is  known  as  the  Protestant  and  Liberal  move- 
ment in  religion  has  been  more  favourable  to  truth  and 
the  truth-seeking  spirit,  but  not  so  favourable,  often 
unfavourable,  to  the  worshipful  spirit  and  the  culture 
of  devoutness  and  piety.  "  Light  enough,  but  no 
heat,"  was  the  crisp  phrase  in  which  some  one  described 
the  failure  of  ancient  philosophical  systems.  "  Light 
enough,  but  no  heat,"  also  describes  not  a  few  churches, 
both  narrow  and  broad,  Calvinistic  and  Liberal.  They 
are  about  the  last  places  to  which  one  ought  to  resort 
who  is  seeking  the  atmosphere  of  prayer  and  wants 
to  have  his  spiritual  life  quickened  and  nourished. 
But  the  faith  which  kindles  no  fire  and  never  sets 
the  affections  aglow  is  unworthy  and  inadequate. 
The  world  will  never  be  redeemed  by  ideas  and 
theories  and  debates.  The  religion  that  is  only 
rational  and  nothing  more  is  the  deadest  of  all  dead 
things. 

Let  us  frankly  acknowledge  that  men  and  women 
of  enlightened  and  liberal  minds  are  often  deficient 
in  devoutness  and  fervour.  Their  dread  of  super- 
stition, bigotry,  and  fanaticism  drives  them  to  opposite 
extremes  of  coldness  and  spiritual  insensibility.  But 
why  should  ignorance  and  not  knowledge  be  regarded 
as  the  mother  of  devotion  ^     Why,  in  the  endeavour 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         223 

to  escape  from  narrow  thought  and  ways,  should 
spiritual  passion  fade  and  fail  ?  There  is  no  incom- 
patibility between  the  free  mind  and  the  devout 
heart.  The  spiritual  affections  can  just  as  well  exist 
with  reasonable  and  enlightened  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  verities  as  with  foolish  and  ignorant  con- 
ceptions. God  is  the  God  of  truth,  and  we  must 
surely  come  nearer  to  Him  as  we  come  nearer  to 
His  truth  and  think  His  thoughts  after  Him,  and  as 
we  ourselves  seek  to  be  true  and  to  have  truth  in 
the  inward  parts.  Is  it  a  counsel  of  perfection  that 
bids  us  love  Him  with  the  mind  ?  Is  there  not  a 
prayer  possible  whose  aspiration  is  truth,  and  a 
worship  that  is  quickened  and  deepened  by  know- 
ledge ?  Cannot  we  welcome  the  full  light  of  this 
new  day  of  God  and  yet  keep  the  holy  fire  burning 
on  our  altars  ?  In  past  days  religion  sang  of  a  ruined 
race  and  a  world  under  the  Divine  wrath  and  curse. 
Cannot  we  set  to  music  the  ideal  of  a  rising  humanity 
and  the  good  news  of  a  world  under  God's  love  and 
blessing  .''  Cannot  errors  and  half-truths,  myths  and 
legends  and  fictions,  and  words  which  are  not  the 
natural  and  just  expression  of  our  thought,  be  purged 
from  our  worship  of  Him  who  calls  us  to  be  children 
of  the  light  and  the  day  ?  Is  it  not  time  we  were 
done  singing  and  saying  things  we  do  not  deeply 
think  and  feel,  done  with  phrases  that  are  the  symbols 
of  faded  convictions,  of  beliefs  we  have  left   behind, 


224  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  which  do  not  fit  the  new  universe  in  which  we 
are  living  and  have  no  honest  place  and  meaning  in 
our  new  order  of  thought  ?  Cannot  our  hymns  and 
prayers  give  clear  and  full  expression  to  our  larger 
and  lovelier  trusts  and  hopes,  to  our  Christian  faith 
in  the  Eternal  Goodness  and  Fatherhood,  to  our  per- 
ception and  assurance  of  the  gracious  meaning  and 
end  of  life's  discipline,  to  our  interpretation  of  the 
universe  and  of  immortality  in  the  terms  of  filial 
confidence  ? 

It  ought,  indeed,  to  be  easier  now  for  us  to  keep  the 
fire  burning  on  our  altars  and  to  lift  up  our  hearts  in 
worship.  Worship  may  mean,  and  ought  to  mean, 
more  to-day  than  ever  it  did  ;  be  more  full  of  awe  and 
reverence,  of  trust  and  hope,  of  inspiration  and  joy  and 
peace.  We  see  and  believe  better  things  ;  God  is 
more  God  to  us,  Christ  more  truly  Divine,  the  world 
and  life  and  immortality  more  wonderful  and  good, 
and  grace  more  abounding  and  infinite.  We  do  not 
need  to  borrow  emotion  and  fervour.  We  have  only 
to  feel  more  deeply  what  we  feel  and  to  think  more 
deeply  what  we  think,  to  have  an  emotion  and  fervour 
all  our  own,  to  have  a  joy  and  peace  unspeakable,  and 
to  be  carried  to  the  highest  heights  of  praise  and 
prayer.  It  will  be  due  entirely  to  our  own  lack  of 
reflection  and  imagination  and  earnestness  if  our  new 
thought  of  God  and  the  things  of  God  does  not  kindle 
in  our  souls  a  purer  and  deeper  devotional    fervour, 


GUARDING  THE  HOLY  FIRE         225 

give     not    only    light    but    heat,    and    so    move    and 
direct  us 

"  That  mind  and  soul,  according  well, 

May  make  one  music  as  before. 

But  vaster." 

Let  me  ask  you,  then,  to  face  this  ideal  and  test  of 
the  Church  which  these  passing  days  require — a  Church 
that  is  both  a  school  of  thought  and  a  school  of  piety, 
full  of  light  and  full  of  warmth,  a  place  where  the 
whole  truth  of  God  is  sought  and  loved  and  preached, 
and  a  place  also  where  there  is  the  constant  stress 
of  spiritual  influence  of  the  purest  and  highest  kind. 
There  has  never  yet  been  a  Church  that  has  freely  and 
fully  welcomed  and  united  perfectly  fearless  intelligence 
and  perfect  piety.  But  there  is  room  for  it  here  and 
everywhere.  No  other  Church  is  so  necessary  as  this 
Church  of  the  Reconciliation.  But  it  begins,  as  every- 
thing truly  great  and  Divine  in  this  world  begins,  with 
the  individual  and  the  fidelity  of  the  individual. 
The  union  of  the  enlightened  mind  and  the  prayerful 
and  fervent  heart  is  the  ideal  unity  for  which  we  must 
each  strive.  We  must  be  men  and  women  who  seek 
constantly  to  keep  the  mind  open  and  the  heart  devout, 
the  thought  clear  and  honest,  and  the  spirit  reverent 
and  prayerful  ;  and  fulfilling  this  ideal  we  shall  be 
living  stones  in  the  New  Temple  and  Church  of  God 
whose  foundation  is  truth  and  whose  walls  are  salvation 
and  its  gates  praise.     We  will  not  be  of  those  who  are 

15 


226  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

at  ease  in  Zion,  content  to  say,  "  Things  may  continue 
as  they  are,  for  they  will  last  my  time  "  ;  but  of  those 
who  think  of  the  future  and  work  for  it,  and  who  for 
Zion's  sake  will  not  hold  their  peace  and  for  Jeru- 
salem's sake  will  not  rest  until  her  righteousness  goeth 
forth  as  brightness  and  her  salvation  as  a  fire  that 
burneth. 

A  Prayer  in  a  Time  of  Religious  Declension 

Almighty  God,  the  Hope  of  Israel  and  the  Saviour 
thereof  in  time  of  trouble,  we  pray  unto  Thee  for  all 
those  whose  confidence  in  heavenly  things  is  failing, 
and  whose  love  is  waxing  cold  ;  for  those  who  are 
wandering  from  Thy  ways  in  darkness,  and  forgetting 
Thee  more  and  more.  Have  mercy  upon  them,  and 
turn  them  to  Thyself.  In  quiet  hours  may  memory, 
recalling  lost  feelings  of  religious  tenderness  and  joy, 
and  forsaken  habits  of  prayer  and  service,  awaken  them 
to  repentance.  Rekindle  in  them,  we  beseech  Thee, 
the  flame  of  Divine  love  ;  revive  aspiration  and  restore 
them  to  Thy  salvation.  Pour  upon  us  all  the  spirit  of 
faith  and  obedience,  that  we  may  avoid  whatever 
weakens  and  destroys  us,  and  lay  hold  on  the  life 
which  is  life  indeed,  and  come  at  last  to  the  fellowship 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Amen, 


\'/uJ\iM^  ^ 


VT^   iyV>^.eM^^^   -  7^'^  f-^J^ 


THE  DAY'S  WORK   ^^ 


"  Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labour  until  the  evening." — 
Psalm  civ.  23. 

The  Psalm  from  which  our  text  is  taken  is  one  of  the 
most  complete  and  impressive  pictures  of  the  universe 
to  be  found  in  ancient  literature,  and  it  breathes  the 
very  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  race.  It  has  been  called 
the  Psalm  of  the  Cosmos.  It  moves  through  all  creation, 
and  begins  and  ends  with  praise.  Like  all  the  highest 
reaches  of  the  human  imagination,  it  lays  hold  of  the 
inner  and  deeper  truth  of  things,  and  suggests  much 
more  than  literary  description  can  convey.  He  was 
not  a  man  of  knowledge  in  the  modern  sense,  this 
Hebrew  poet,  although  the  wide  sweep  of  his  thought 
seems  to  speak  of  some  contact  with  foreign  culture, 
but  he  was  at  home  in  that  knowledge  of  God  which 
is  Eternal  Life. 

No  careful  reader  of  the  Psalm  will  fail  to  see  that 
it  follows  mainly  the  order  and  sequence  of  the  story 
of  the  beginnings  of  things  with  which  our  Bible  opens 
— a  story  which  in  its  grouping  of  the  creative  action 

227 


22  8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

into  progressive  stages  dimly  anticipates  our  modern 
idea  of  development  :  yet  the  Psalm  is  no  mere  copy 
of  that  story — itself  probably  an  old  Babylonian  tradition 
that  assumed  a  new  meaning  and  beauty  under  the 
inspired  Hebrew  pen.  The  story  of  genesis  is  the 
record  of  a  past  and  finished  creation  :  the  Psalm  is  a 
picture  of  a  continuous,  ever-proceeding  creation — a 
kind  of  prophecy  of  the  genesis  of  science.  All  the 
work  of  the  ancient  record  we  see  going  on  before 
our  eyes  :  the  wondrous  week  of  Divine  activity  is 
every  week,  and  its  six  great  days  are  repeated  in  all 
the  days.  In  the  Psalm,  as  in  Genesis,  we  see  life 
moving  on  in  the  same  ordered  and  stately  way  to  the 
same  goal  ;  rising  up  in  slow  and  steady  grandeur  to 
man,  and  in  man  reaching  its  summit  and  crown.  The 
going  forth  of  man  is  the  highest  point  in  the  vast, 
ascending  movement — the  end  or  goal  of  life  on  its 
material  side.  Earth's  countless  creatures  and  things 
find  in  him  their  fulfilment  and  meaning,  and  have 
helped  to  make  him  what  he  is.  The  world  is  in  him 
as  much  as  he  is  in  the  world. 
George  Herbert  sings  : 

"  Man  is  everything  and  more." 

Yes  !  everything,  but  more  :  an  epitome  of  the  whole 
creation,  gathering  up  into  himself  all  the  kingdoms 
at  his  feet,  holding  the  secret  of  all  earthly  life — but 
more.     In  our  Psalm,  until  we  reach  the  text,  Deity 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  229 

is  represented  as  working  alone,  causing  the  grass  to 
grow  and  giving  to  the  wild  beasts  their  food  ;  but 
man  goeth  forth — goeth  forth  a  self-conscious,  self- 
acting  being,  a  distinct  person,  a  sovereign  soul  with 
power  to  shape  the  course  of  his  own  life  and  activity. 
And  this  going  forth  of  man  is  not  only  the  summing 
up  and  end  of  a  creation,  but  the  beginning  of  a  new 
creation.  However  closely  he  may  be  allied  to  what 
is  beneath  him,  whatever  his  affiliations  with  lower  and 
earlier  life,  he  belongs  to  another  order.  With  him 
a  new  energy  comes  into  existence  which  does  not  form 
a  part  of  the  sum  of  physical  forces.  Marvellous  as  is 
the  material  universe,  in  man  is  hidden  a  glory  beyond 
that  of  all  things  visible.  Because  he  thinks  and  wills 
and  loves,  he  is  kindred  to  the  Infinite  Mind  and  Will 
and  Heart — kindred  to  God  ;  not  only  a  creature 
formed  and  sustained  by  the  Creator's  power,  but  a 
son  of  God,  begotten  not  made,  and  therefore  more 
to  God  than  vast  worlds  and  burning  suns.  He  has 
his  origin  and  home  in  the  Eternal  Fatherhood,  with 
all  its  thought  and  labour  and  sacrifice.  It  was  as  the 
Representative  of  Humanity  Jesus  said  that  He  came 
out  from  God  ;  and  deep  in  His  fellowship  we  are 
persuaded  of  our  Divine  heredity,  and  know  the  lineage 
of  every  humblest  soul  to  be  Divine. 

Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labour  until 
the  evening. 

I.  Why  are  we  here  in  this  world,  and  what  for.? 


230  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Has  the  question  never  occurred  to  you  ?  Rather, 
has  it  not  come  up  often  in  your  experience  ?  It  has 
been  at  times  only  a  vague  and  fleeting  curiosity  ;  it 
has  made  you  pause  at  other  times  awe-stricken  before 
the  oracle  of  your  own  soul.  But  a  few  short  years 
ago,  we  who  are  gathered  in  this  church  to-day,  we 
who  move  about  now  on  roads  and  streets  as  if  we  had 
moved  about  for  ever — where  were  we  ?  Our  being,  so 
quick  at  this  moment  with  life,  so  full  of  warm  and 
eager  desires  and  purposes,  had  no  conscious  existence. 
The  world  knew  us  not,  and  but  for  His  will,  whose 
word  is  life,  we  should  never  have  been.  But  He 
breathed  into  us  His  quickening  Spirit,  and  out  of  the 
abyss  of  possibilities  we  came  to  be  among  the  things 
which  live  and  move  :  our  eyes  opened  to  light  and 
colour  and  form  and  the  glances  of  answering  affection, 
and  our  ears  to  the  sweetness  of  music  and  the  whisper- 
ings of  leaves,  to  the  tones  of  love  and  the  words  of 
teachers,  and  we  took  our  place  in  the  ranks  of  our 
race,  bound  to  our  fellows,  yet  with  an  individuality 
distinct  and  separate  from  them  all. 

Why  are  we  here,  and  what  for  ?  He  is  a  little  man 
in  a  little  world  who  thinks  he  can  give  a  complete 
answer  to  this  question.  Some  of  the  old  and  familiar 
answers  to  it  are  in  many  ways  unsatisfactory,  but  the 
most  satisfactory  answers  suggest  questions  far  beyond 
the  wisdom  of  the  wisest.  Why  did  the  Creative 
power  send  forth  man  into  this  world  at  all .''     What  if 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  231 

he  were  not  and  never  had  been  ?  Can  his  work  and 
labour  in  his  brief  mortal  day  count  for  much  or  any- 
thing in  the  universal  plan  ? 

The  mystery  is  great,  but  it  is  plainly  the  purpose 
of  the  mystery  to  challenge  our  courage  and  to  lead 
the  human  mind  onward  step  by  step  to  the  conquest 
of  the  unknown.  The  multitude  of  years  have  taught 
us  wisdom.  Without  assuming  any  knowledge  of 
things  which  we  do  not  really  know,  and  impatient  of 
all  cheap  and  easy  solutions  of  the  human  problem,  yet 
we  cannot  confess  to  utter  ignorance.  We  know  much, 
and  we  believe  and  hope  more. 

Why  are  we  here,  and  what  for  ?  We  have  not 
drifted  to  the  place  where  we  now  find  ourselves.  We 
are  not  accidents,  chance  appearances  in  the  world,  a 
mass  of  solitary  creatures  unrelated  to  anything  truly 
great  and  significant  beyond  and  above  ourselves.  Of 
one  thing  we  may  be  certain,  that  the  whole  purpose 
and  order  of  the  world  must  have  some  relation  to  our 
lives,  and  our  lives  some  relation  to  the  whole  purpose 
and  order  of  the  world.  We  are  here,  must  it  not  be  } 
as  parts  of  this  great  creation,  to  fill  our  place  in  it  as 
faithfully  as  we  can  :  to  contribute  to  the  development 
of  its  Purpose  by  bringing  our  individual  life  with  all 
its  peculiar  endowments  and  opportunities,  relations 
and  interests,  into  correspondence  with  that  Purpose  ; 
to  work  in  harmony  with  the  Power,  the  Wisdom, 
the  Goodness  which  most  manifestly  pervade  the  world. 


232  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  are  slowly  building  it  up  into  strength  and 
beauty. 

In  childhood  many  of  us  were  taught  that  the  chief 
end  of  man  is  to  glorify  God.  It  is  a  subHme  answer 
to  our  question,  and  cannot  be  improved  upon,  if  we 
only  put  the  true  meaning  into  it.  We  glorify  God 
when  we  give  ourselves  to  His  purpose  in  the  world 
and  in  our  human  life,  to  His  will  and  work.  And  to 
begin  our  days  with  the  idea  that  it  is  our  chief  end 
here,  and  now,  so  to  develop  and  train  and  use  our- 
selves that  God  may  be  glorified — surely  this  is  the 
best  thing  we  can  take  into  the  world.  Nothing  less 
than  this  will  give  to  our  life  its  noblest  and  grandest 
meaning. 

St.  Paul  more  than  once  in  his  letters  describes 
himself  and  his  companions  in  service  and  sacrifice 
as  fellow-workers  with  God.  The  words  speak  of 
conscious  and  voluntary  co-operation,  of  willing  and 
intelligent  oneness  of  purpose  and  effort,  with  the  will 
and  work  of  God.  In  creating  and  perfecting  His 
world,  in  getting  His  will  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven,  God  has  made  Himself  dependent  upon  the 
help  and  fidelity  of  His  human  children. 

In  his  controversy  with  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  French 
philosopher  Comte  said  :  "  My  Deity  (Humanity)  has 
at  least  one  advantage  over  yours — he  needs  help,  and 
can  be  helped."  Mill  met  the  charge  by  the  saying 
that  the  theist's  God  is  not  omnipotent,  "  He  can  be 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  233 

helped,  Great  Worker  though  He  be."  But  we  are 
not  compelled  to  doubt  or  deny  the  omnipotence  of 
Deity  before  we  can  believe  that  our  part  in  the  Divine 
movement  of  the  world  is  not  a  passive  one,  that  we 
are  not  simple  recipients  and  blind  instruments,  but 
allies  and  helpers  of  the  Eternal  Power. 

There  prevails  here  and  there  a  kind  of  belief  in  the 
power  of  God  which  makes  all  human  effort  appear  to 
be  unnecessary  and  superfluous,  and  which  if  acted  on 
would  deaden  the  sense  of  duty  and  be  the  paralysis  of 
energy  ;  but  few  even  among  those  who  strenuously 
maintain  it  put  their  theory  into  practice.  Their  hearts 
are  wiser  than  their  heads.  The  indolence  and  indiffer- 
ence of  men  have  little  to  do  with  their  speculative 
opinions.  They  are  due,  as  a  rule,  to  low  or  partial 
development,  or  to  selfishness  and  worldliness.  On  the 
other  hand,  what  the  philosopher  described  as  the 
feeling  of  helping  God,  has  always  been  cherished  by 
the  most  sincere  and  earnest  believers  in  the  power  of 
God  over  all.  No  one  believed  in  the  sovereignty  of 
that  power  more  than  St.  Paul,  but  his  belief  in  it  did 
not  prevent  him  from  putting  forward  the  claim  again 
and  again,  to  be  a  fellow-worker  with  God.  It  did  not 
diminish  the  sum  of  his  personal  effort,  rather  did  it 
stir  him  to  an  activity  which  has  been  seldom  surpassed 
or  even  equalled  in  any  age  of  the  world,  and  the 
reason  was,  he  felt  the  power  of  God,  not  only  in  the 
world  without  but  in  the  world  within,  filling  his  own 


234  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

mind  and  heart,  and  the  deep  source  and  inspiration  of 
his  own  energy  ;  felt  that  he  himself  was  part  of  the 
Divine  power  that  is  working  in  the  world  for  truth 
and  righteousness,  for  goodness  and  love. 

To  be  a  fellow-worker  with  God  may  appear  to  be 
too  vast  and  impossible  an  idea  of  the  purpose  of  human 
life  in  this  world  ;  yet  nothing  is  clearer  and  more 
certain  than  that  He  who  made  and  meant  man  and 
sent  him  here  to  work  and  to  labour  until  the  evening 
has  left  many  things  for  man  to  do  in  fulfiUing  His 
plans  and  completing  His  works.  The  Divine  power 
in  the  world  is  not  an  abstract,  impersonal  energy,  not 
an  unembodied  and  wandering  spirit.  God  in  the 
world  creating  and  perfecting  it  means  His  power  and 
spirit  dwelling  in  and  working  through  industrious, 
righteous,  faithful,  beneficent  lives.  The  unit  of  power 
in  the  world  is  not  God  isolated  from  man,  and  not 
man  isolated  from  God  ;  but  God  and  man  united, 
working  purposely  and  continuously  together ;  God 
quickening  and  inspiring  man  and  man,  opening  his  life 
to  be  a  part  of  the  Divine  life  of  the  world.  It  is  with 
perfect  and  absolute  simplicity  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  represents  this  union  of  man  and  God  in  purpose 
and  work.  We  cannot  go  further  in  simplicity.  Man 
works  with  God  :  God  inspires  man.  "  My  Father," 
said  Jesus,  "works  continuously  and  I  work.  The 
works  I  do  are  not  Mine  but  the  Father's  who  sends 
me.     I  do  what  I  see  My  Father  doing.     And  as  the 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  235 

Father  sends  Me  so  send  I  you.  The  glory  He  has 
given  to  Me  I  give  to  you — that  we  may  all  be  one, 
doing  the  same  thing,  working  the  same  work." 

How  we  have  lost  sight  of  this  truth  !  And  what 
confessions  and  miseries  have  come  of  our  searching 
and  effort  to  find  God  in  the  world  outside  of  and 
apart  from  man  ;  from  placing  God  and  man  over 
against  each  other  as  though  their  spheres  of  activity 
were  separated  by  the  chasm  of  an  infinite  difference  ! 
Deity  has  been  conceived  as  a  majestic  Being  dwelling 
apart  from  the  universe,  overseeing  it  and  intervening 
now  and  again  by  special  acts,  but  working  as  a  rule  in 
profound  and  mighty  isolation,  outside  of  and  apart 
from  the  world,  outside  of  and  apart  from  His  children. 
Men  have  sometimes  wrought  and  fought  against  the 
evil  of  the  world  as  if  they  had  no  Divine  companion 
at  their  side,  and  felt  no  need  of  any  other  help  than 
their  own.  Again,  at  other  times,  they  have  imagined 
that  God  would  do  it  all,  that  they  had  no  place  in 
the  Divine  work,  that  it  was  their  place  to  stand  by  and 
wait  and  pray  for  a  human  redemption,  or  a  golden 
age,  or  a  millennium  that  will  come  without  their  aid 
and  co-operation.  But  it  is  not  man  apart  from  God 
who  is  to  build  up  and  redeem  the  earth,  nor  is  it  God 
apart  from  man,  but  man  and  God  working  together. 
When  we  turn  and  look  at  distant  ages  we  see,  it  is 
true.  Deity  working  alone  ;  spheres  of  Divine  activity 
with  which  man  has  nothing  to  do,  in  which  he  has  no 


236  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

place,  no  existence.  An  eternity  lies  behind  us  in 
which  the  power  that  comes  to  self-expression  in  man 
was  as  living  and  active  in  an  infinite  universe  as  to-day. 
Through  long  volcanic  ages,  through  ages  of  deluge 
and  chaos  and  unrest,  God  was  working  the  earth  upon 
which  we  now  live  and  move  into  strength  and  beauty. 
Acting  alone  He  made  the  world.  "Where  wast 
thou,"  Deity  asks  Job,  "  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  earth  ? "  Man  was  not  there.  Things  were  not 
ready  for  him.  There  was  nothing  he  could  do.  But 
at  length  he  appeared.  In  the  Hebrew  poem  of  the 
beginnings,  Deity  is  represented  as  summoning  all  His 
powers  for  the  fashioning  of  a  being  who  would  reflect 
His  moral  image,  complete  His  unfinished  creation, 
and  work  with  Him  in  subduing  and  ruling  the  earth. 
"  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image  and  after  our  likeness, 
and  let  him  replenish  the  earth,  subdue  it  and  have 
dominion."  Yes  !  this  is  what  we  are  here  for — to  be 
co-workers  with  the  Maker  and  Lord  of  all,  to  ally 
ourselves  with  His  creative  purpose  and  work. 

What  a  great  and  inspiring  view  of  man's  place  in 
creation  do  the  words  of  Psalmist  and  Apostle  suggest ; 
one  to  move  and  thrill  the  whole  being  and  to  give  a 
new  and  wonderful  interest  and  meaning,  value  and 
divinity,  to  human  life.  In  this  vast  order  of  things 
we  often  count  ourselves  of  little  worth  and  significance. 
But  our  littleness  is  only  seeming.  We  can  think 
the  Creator's  thoughts,  be  conscious  of  His  purpose, 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  237 

and  take  some  intelligent  part  in  fulfilling  that  purpose. 
Let  us  not  cherish  any  mean  conception  of  what  we  can 
do.  Nothing  is  so  fatal  to  high  endeavour.  It  is 
ridiculous  and  worse  to  hear  men  and  women  praying 
(in  the  language  of  a  popular  hymn)  : 

*'  O  to  be  nothing,  nothing." 

It  must  surely  be  more  honouring  and  pleasing  to  Him 
who  made  us  to  pray  and  strive  to  be  something.  Our 
unreal  and  morbid  self-depreciation  cannot  be  accept- 
able to  Him.  He  is  glorified,  not  by  our  subjection 
and  passivity,  but  by  that  self-consecration  which  pre- 
supposes self-development,  the  thoughtful  and  complete 
cultivation  of  all  our  human  powers.  It  is  our  disci- 
plined faculties  we  must  bring  to  Him  if  we  are  to  be 
His  fellow-workers.  It  is  not  to  idle  and  empty  minds 
but  to  fully  exercised  and  informed  minds  His  inspira- 
tion comes.  It  is  not  weak  and  broken  wills,  but  strong 
and  consecrated  wills  He  requires  for  His  work  and 
service.  He  needs  us,  and  He  needs  us  at  our  best. 
His  true  image  and  likeness  is  in  the  best  we  can  be 
and  do  ;  and  only  as  we  become  like  Him  can  we  know 
Him,  reveal  Him,  live  His  life,  obey  His  will,  and  do 
His  work.  Only  as  we  are  intelligent  do  we  show 
forth  His  intelligence  ;  only  as  we  are  strong  do  we 
show  forth  His  strength  ;  only  as  we  are  true  and  just 
and  merciful  do  we  show  forth  His  goodness.  And  it 
is  the  same  with  all  the  Divine  perfections, — only  as  we 


238  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

share  them  and  grow  up  into  them  are  we  able  to  carry- 
out  His  purpose  in  the  world.  We  were  not  made  to 
be  nonentities,  and  the  pietistic  cry  to  be  "  nothing, 
nothing,"  must  be  hateful  in  the  ear  of  Him  who 
created  us  in  His  own  image  and  sent  us  forth  to  work 
and  to  labour  until  the  evening.  There  was  no  want  of 
faith  or  humility  in  Martin  Luther,  and  yet  he  did  not 
shrink  from  saying,  "  God  needs  strong  men  and  cannot 
do  without  them."  You  remember  George  Eliot's  fine 
poem  on  the  famous  violin-maker  of  Cremona  and  its 
lesson  : 

'' .  .  .  Not  God  Himself  can  make  man's  best 
Without  best  men  to  help  Him.   .  .   . 

....  'Tis  God  gives  skill, 
But  not  without  men's  hands  :   He  could  not  make 
Antonio  Stradivari's  violins 
Without  Antonio " 

It  is  a  bold  saying,  but  a  true  one — true  for  you  and 
true  for  me.  Let  the  thought  possess  us,  and  possess 
us  passionately.  We  have  a  work  to  do  in  the  world 
which  God  cannot  do,  which  we  must  do,  or  it  will  be 
left  undone.  He  relies  upon  men  for  the  advancement 
of  His  world.  Only  as  they  co-operate  with  Him  can 
His  will  be  done  on  earth  as  in  heaven.  No  matter 
how  the  Eternal  Power  is  affirmed  and  described, 
according  to  the  Bible — and  the  Bible  but  interprets 
and  gives  emphasis  and  authority  to  the  lesson  of 
human  experience — God  has  need  of  men,  aye,  strong 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  239 

men,  to  fulfil  His  purpose  and  to  build  up  and  perfect 
His  world. 

2.  We  are  here  to  share  the  work  of  God  in  creat- 
ing the  world — called  not  only  to  subdue  and  control, 
but  to  create.  "  God  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth," 
said  the  ancient  seer  ;  but  when  God  made  the  world 
He  did  not  finish  it.  Creation  is  not  finished,  but  is 
always  proceeding.  We  stand  in  the  midst  of  an  un- 
ending genesis.  We  do  right  to  expand  the  six  days 
of  the  Hebrew  story  into  the  whole  life  of  the  world. 
The  seventh  day  of  rest,  when  God  shall  look  upon 
His  creation  and  find  it  very  good,  has  not  yet  dawned. 
"  My  Father,"  says  Jesus,  "  works  continuously,  and 
I  work."  And  in  this  continuous  and  never-ceasing 
work  of  creation  man  can  help  or  hinder,  develop  or 
retard,  the  creative  purpose  and  process.  Things  have 
been  made  possible,  but  man  has  to  make  the  possible 
into  the  actual.  The  world  into  which  he  is  born  has 
all  the  raw  material  prepared  to  his  hand,  but  he  is 
here  to  work  it  into  new  and  nobler  forms.  Nature 
is  a  wilderness  ;  he  must  work  and  labour  to  make  it 
a  garden  and  a  fruitful  field,  and  to  bring  all  its 
products  toward  higher  and  higher  points  of  excellence. 

Some  of  you  are  familiar  with  the  pathetic  picture 
which  Plutarch  draws  of  a  man  of  the  earlier  period 
addressing  the  men  of  a  later  age  :  "  O  how  you  are 
cherished  of  the  gods,  you  who  live  now  !  How  for- 
tunate is  your  time  !     All  Nature  is  engaged  in  giving 


240  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

you  delights.  But  our  birth-time  was  mournful  and 
barren.  The  world  was  so  new  that  we  were  in  want 
of  everything.  The  air  was  not  pure,  the  sun  was 
obscured,  the  rivers  overflowed  their  banks,  all  was 
marsh  and  thicket  and  forest  ;  we  had  neither  inven- 
tions nor  inventors,  our  misery  was  extreme."  The 
immense  change  which  has  taken  place  in  the  environ- 
ment of  man  since  the  time  Plutarch  recalled  has  been 
due  entirely  to  the  co-operation  of  successive  genera- 
tions of  mankind  with  God.  What  we  behold  as  we 
look  back  is  God  creating  through  man,  improving  and 
completing  His  world,  making  it  more  habitable  and 
home-like,  less  rude  and  barren,  fairer  and  more  fruitful. 
The  one  great  teaching  of  modern  knowledge  is  that 
not  anything  above  a  certain  low  level  of  excellence 
comes  by  natural  law  unaided  by  man  ;  that  all  best 
things  in  the  world  of  Nature  to-day  are  the  result  of 
his  thoughts  and  toil.  An  eminent  geologist  has 
written  a  book  that  bears  the  title.  The  Earth  as  Modi- 
fied by  Human  Action^  and  one  has  only  to  read  it  to  see 
the  wide  range  of  human  power  and  to  discover  how 
closely  man  is  in  partnership  with  God  in  carrying  out 
and  completing  the  creative  process  which  is  still  going 
forward  on  a  vast  scale.  True  !  he  can  do  nothing 
without  God  ;  he  can  create  no  new  force  ;  neither  sun 
nor  soil,  nor  plant  nor  seed,  are  of  his  making  ;  all  the 
material  with  which  he  works.  Nature  has  furnished 
him  ;  but  what  can  he  not  do  with  that  material,  and 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  241 

what  has  he  not  done  ?  He  has  modified  cHmate, 
made  the  rivers  change  their  course,  the  ocean  its  shore, 
made  forests  grow  and  made  new  ground  for  them  to 
grow  in,  made  the  parched  ground  a  pool  and  the  thirsty- 
land  springs  of  water,  changed  useless  ore  into  iron  and 
sand  into  glass  clearer  than  Nature's  crystals.  Wonders 
which  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Job  declared  to  be  far 
and  for  ever  beyond  man  are  now  either  counted 
among  man's  actual  achievements,  or  seen  to  be  possible. 
He  has  perceived  the  breadth  of  the  earth,  made  the 
lightning  his  servant,  found  out  the  way  of  the  wind, 
the  path  of  the  clouds,  the  secret  springs  of  the  sea, 
and  the  place  where  the  light  dwelleth.  He  is  slowly 
gathering  up  into  his  hand  all  the  forces  of  Nature,  and 
is  using  them  at  his  will.  Browning  makes  Paracelsus 
say  of  men — 

"  See,  if  we  cannot  beat  thine  angels  yet," 

and  men  have  certainly  beaten  the  angels  of  Paracelsus' 
day  in  the  mastery  of  the  earth.  Eight  hundred  years 
ago,  for  example,  there  was  no  such  country  as  the 
Holland  of  our  day  ;  God  had  made  it  possible,  but 
men  had  to  give  it  frame  and  form.  The  map  of 
Holland  now  is  not  even  what  it  was  at  the  beginning 
of  last  century.  It  has  about  120,000  more  acres  of 
land  than  it  had  then.  Thus  does  man  work  with 
God  :  thus  does  God  work  along  the  lines  of  human  life  : 

o 

thus  is  the  ancient  miracle  of  creation  repeated  :     "  The 

16 


242  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

waters  under  the  earth  were  gathered  together  and  the 

*    dry  land  appeared." 

I  r^     Man  is  not  only  a  factor  in  evolution  but  an  instru- 

/    ment.     Not   without   him   does    Nature  evolve.     He 
has  his  contribution  to  make  toward  the  finishing  and 

\  perfecting  of  the  material  universe.  The  message  of 
evolution  to  man  is,  "  Thou  art  God's  fellow-worker." 
Through  the  animal  world  we  see  him  working  with 
creative  touch,  carrying  out  the  Creator's  purpose, 
improving  the  type  and  elevating  in  the  scale  of  being 
the  creatures  God  has  made.  To  bring  flowers  and 
fruits  to  their  perfection  the  labour  of  man  must  be 
joined  to  the  labour  of  God,  and  man  must  improve 
and  finish  what  God  begins.  At  his  touch  flowers 
take  new  form  and  colour  and  sweetness,  the  vine  yields 
a  finer  grape,  and  the  trees  bear  fruit  Nature  never 
gave  them.  Only  indeed  when  man  has  grown  up  to 
the  point  at  which  his  thought  becomes  one  with  the 
thought  of  God  in  things,  do  we  fully  behold  the 
marvel  of  life.  Thus  does  man  in  his  work  in  the 
material  world  show  that  he  is  made  in  the  image  of 
the  Creator,  and  thus  does  the  material  world  testify 
to  the  positive  and  intimate  co-operation  of  God  and 
man  in  bringing  Nature  and  all  the  products  of  Nature 
toward  perfection. 

3.  In  his  own  making  and  saving,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  personal  faculty  and  character,  man  is  called 
to  work  and  to  labour  until   the  evening.     What  he 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  243 

can  do  for  the  earth  and  for  the  creatures  and  things 
which  live  upon  it,  he  can  do  for  himself — fulfil  and 
finish  the  Creator's  purpose  and  plan.  God  makes 
nothing  right-away  and  perfect  at  once.  Like  the  rest 
of  His  work,  man  was  left  unfinished  that  man  himself 
might  complete  what  God  began.  The  statement  in 
Genesis  that  man  is  made  in  the  Divine  image  is 
prophecy,  not  history — the  end  seen  from  the  begin- 
ning ;  but  to  see  how  much  that  prophecy  has  been 
fulfilled,  to  see  how  much  man  has  been  co-operating 
with  God  through  the  ages,  we  have  only  to  compare 
the  man  of  to-day  with  primitive  man.  All  creation 
moved  by  steady  gradation  up  to  man,  and  from  age 
to  age  man  has  been  moving  upward,  slowly  finding 
himself,  becoming  more  and  more  an  intellectual  and 
moral  being,  more  and  more  a  son  of  God  able  to 
know  the  truth,  to  discern  and  do  the  right,  and  to 
love  and  serve  the  Infinite  Good.  Not  alone  and  not 
out  of  nothing  has  he  created  language,  literature,  art, 
science,  society,  religion  ;  but  with  the  help  of  God 
and  out  of  capacities  which  were  hidden  in  him  from 
the  beginning  and  which  contained  the  promise  and 
potency  of  his  future  development.  Faith  in  man,  in 
what  he  can  do  and  achieve,  and  in  his  power  to  create 
character,  does  not  exclude  but  include  God  as  the 
ground  of  all  power,  the  giver  of  all  good,  and  the 
helper  of  all  endeavour.  Our  knowledge  is  knowledge 
of  His  ways  in  those  laws  which  to  the  religious  mind 


244  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

are  His  will.  Our  wisdom  of  experience  is  the  dis- 
covery of  the  conditions  of  our  best  life, — conditions 
which  we  should  never  have  discovered  had  they  not 
existed  before  and  beyond  us,  and  had  not  the  world 
been  so  framed  and  ordered  as  to  make  them  the  best, 
the  eternal  laws  of  moral  health  and  strength  and  peace. 
We  are  to  work  out  our  own  salvation  because  God  is 
already  and  always  working  in  that  direction,  and 
because  for  us  to  be  working  in  the  direction  of  His 
will  is  the  order  of  our  true  development,  our  salvation 
in  this  and  in  all  the  worlds. 

We  can  do  nothing  for  ourselves  without  God, 
but  God  can  do  nothing  with  us,  cannot  bring  us  to 
ourselves,  without  our  co-operation.  To  an  extent 
practically  unlimited  we  can  make  or  mar  ourselves. 
The  differences  between  men  are,  generally  speaking, 
self-made.  Here  at  least  we  cannot  afford  to  let 
things  take  their  course  thinking  they  will  somehow 
come  out  right.  Left  to  themselves  they  will  come  out 
wrong.  Real  advance  is  only  made  when  voluntary, 
purposeful  efforts  aid  the  unconscious  strivings  of 
nature.  Self-culture  in  the  noblest  and  largest  sense  is 
a  Divine  obligation  laid  upon  each  of  us  which  we 
must  strive  to  fulfil  to  the  uttermost,  not  merely  or 
chiefly  for  our  private  pleasure  or  profit,  but  that  we 
may  be  qualified  to  be  fellow-workers  with  God  in 
the  world  and  gain  ground  for  His  kingdom,  which 
is  the  true  kingdom  of  man. 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  245 

"Work  out  your  salvation,"  says  the  apostle.  We 
cannot  be  passive  recipients  of  the  divinest  blessings 
of  life.  We  cannot  be  mesmerised  into  that  great 
moral  and  spiritual  good  which  Scripture  calls  salva- 
tion. The  salvation  that  costs  us  nothing  is  worth 
nothing,  an  unreal  rescue  from  an  unreal  danger. 
"Repent,"  "Pray,"  "Watch,"  "Strive,"  "Obey," 
"  Endure,"  are  the  great  words  of  the  Master  of  the 
Eternal  Life.  God  needs  our  co-operation  or  He 
will  fail  of  His  saving  purpose.  Since  earliest  child- 
hood, through  influences  and  agencies  innumerable. 
He  has  been  working  in  us  and  for  us,  seeking  to 
redeem  us  from  all  evil  and  to  redeem  us  into  all 
goodness  ;  but  we  must  yield  ourselves  to  Him  and 
co-work  with  Him  if  His  grace  is  not  to  be  received 
in  vain  and  the  character  be  won  which  is  the 
true  crown  of  life.  You  may  send  your  son  to  school 
and  college,  and  do  all  that  a  father  can  do  to  give  him 
a  liberal  education,  but  in  the  attainment  of  this  one 
thing  upon  which  your  heart  is  set  you  are  absolutely 
dependent  on  your  boy's  co-operation.  Without  his 
voluntary  and  sustained  efforts  you  can  do  nothing. 
And  in  the  same  way  the  Father  of  Spirits  cannot 
redeem  and  train  His  children  without  their  help.  It 
is  in  vain  He  works  unless  we  work  with  Him.  It  is 
in  vain  His  Christ  dies  unless  we  die  with  Him  to  sin. 
Goodness  cannot  be  poured  into  our  souls  any  more 
than  knowledge  into  our  minds  without  the  develop- 


246  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

ment  of  our  sympathy  and  activity.  It  is  an  old 
saying  which  bids  us  pray  as  if  God  did  everything  and 
work  as  if  He  did  nothing,  and  we  always  need  its 
sharp  reminder.  Prayer  is  not  meant  to  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  human  effort,  but  to  be  the  stimulus,  the 
inspiration,  and  support  of  effort ;  not  meant  to  secure 
impunity  for  our  foolish  blundering,  indolence,  and 
neglect,  but  to  keep  us  in  fitness  for  working  with 
God.  It  is  not  things  which  God  gives  in  answer  to 
prayer,  but  wisdom  and  strength  to  labour  for  the 
things  which  are  according  to  His  will ;  power  which 
comes  not  to  displace  but  to  reinforce  personal  will  and 
energy,  to  hold  us  to  our  best,  and  to  achieve  to- 
morrow something  better  than  the  best  of  to-day. 

But  the  work  of  God  for  and  with  man  is  identified 
not  only  with  the  salvation  of  individual  souls  and  lives, 
but  with  all  work  we  respect,  honour  and  rejoice  in  ; 
with  art,  science,  literature,  politics,  trade,  with  every 
activity  that  makes  for  the  good  of  the  community  and 
the  civilisation  of  nations.  We  must  not  think  of  Him 
with  whom  we  have  to  do  as  if  He  only  had  to  do  with 
us  in  parts  of  our  life  and  not  in  the  whole  of  it  ;  as 
if  He  were  only  interested  in  ministers  of  religion, 
missionaries,  itinerant  evangelists,  in  supplying  theologi- 
cal colleges  with  students,  in  starting  revivals,  in  the  size 
of  congregations  and  the  amount  of  collections.  His 
kingdom  ruleth  over  all,  and  what  promotes  human 
progress  is  at  the  same  time  working  out  His  purpose 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  247 

with  man.  In  finding  out  what  stars  and  rocks  and 
plants  have  to  say  for  themselves,  in  seeking  to  under- 
stand and  heal  diseases  of  body  and  mind,  in  teaching 
and  training  the  young,  in  multiplying  all  kinds  of 
useful  and  beautiful  things,  in  manufacture  and  trade, 
in  buying  and  selling,  in  all  work  in  which  we  can 
honourably  engage,  we  may  have  the  feeling  that  we 
are  in  partnership  with  God,  that  we  are  fulfilling  by 
doing  what  we  do  honestly  and  well  a  Divine  purpose, 
that  we  are  helping  on  God's  world,  and  that  God 
requires  and  uses  our  help  at  every  step. 

Not  long  ago  I  read  in  the  biography  of  an  eminent 
business  man  that  he  would  never  engage  in  any  com- 
mercial enterprise  which  he  did  not  think  to  be  bene- 
ficial to  the  community.  That  is  what  it  means  to 
work  with  God  in  the  ways  of  common  life.  It  is 
working  in  accordance  with  His  will  who  wills  good  to 
all,  and  who  has  put  the  world  into  the  hands  of  men 
that  they  may  work  with  Him  in  developing  its  resources 
and  in  making  it  a  fairer  and  happier  dwelling-place  to 
all  His  children.  The  great  duties,  beheve  me,  are 
never  at  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Let  us  idealise  our 
daily  tasks  and  put  them  on  the  side  of  the  Power  who 
is  working  for  righteousness  and  love  in  human  society. 
Our  life  in  all  its  provinces  and  interests,  and  not 
merely  our  philanthropic  efforts,  must  be  charged  with 
the  purpose  and  passion  of  our  best  hours  and  holiest 
experiences.     It  does  not  very  much  matter  what  kind 


248  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

of  work  we  do  ;  with  God  there  is  neither  high  nor 
low  ;  His  own  activity  is  as  clearly  manifest  in  the  dust 
beneath  our  feet  as  in  the  stars  above  us.  The  supreme 
thing  is  the  aim  and  the  spirit  which  we  bring  to  our 
work.  To  be  fellow-workers  with  God  in  our  daily 
calling  we  must  have  something  of  the  Divine  thorough- 
ness, we  must  have  larger  than  merely  personal  aims 
and  ends,  we  must  see  that  our  work  both  directly  and 
indirectly  is  an  influence  for  good  and  not  for  evil — an 
elevating  and  not  a  debasing  or  corrupting  influence, 
a  help  and  not  a  hindrance  to  the  coming  of  a  better 
civilisation  and  a  better  society,  doing  something  to 
establish  justice  and  truth  and  goodness  in  the  world, 
and  to  get  God's  will  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 

4.  In  the  saving  of  the  world  God  seeks  to  join 
men  with  Himself  and  His  Christ,  and  calls  them  to 
work  and  labour  with  Him  until  the  evening. 

In  redeeming  the  world,  even  more  than  in  creating 
it,  God  works  through  men  and  in  human  ways.  God 
the  Saviour  must  be  helped  even  more  than  God  the 
Creator.  And  we — if  we  have  the  spirit  of  sonship  to 
God  and  live  in  the  fellowship  of  Jesus  Christ — cannot 
help  sharing  in  the  ministry  of  reconciliation  and  in 
the  sorrow  and  sacrifice  of  that  Cross  in  the  Heart  and 
Life  of  God  which  was  shadowed  forth  in  space  and 
time  in  the  crucifixion  on  Calvary.  To  hold  back  from 
doing  what  we  can  to  take  away  the  sin  of  the  world 
is  to  show  that  in  this  way  and  to  this  extent  we  are 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  249 

isolated  from  God,  and  not  worthy  to  be  called  His 
children.  It  is  well  to  note  the  fact  that  the  men  whose 
sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ  is  most  pure  and  strong 
have  absolutely  no  thought  of  any  work  but  the  work 
of  God.  They  are  taken  up  as  it  were  into  the  play  of 
the  Divine  purpose  and  feel  it  not  ruling  them  from 
without  but  quickening  them  from  within,  feel  it 
permeating  every  pore  of  their  being  as  the  infusion  of 
a  higher  life  ;  and  thus  they  fulfil  their  Master's  joy. 
It  is  through  men  God  helps  and  saves  men,  and 
T  creates  His  new  heaven  and  His  new  earth.  They  are 
I  the  hiding-place  of  His  power,  and  through  their  hands 
He  reaches  forth  to  save  and  heal  His  wandering 
children.  It  was  said  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  that  he 
cared  for  those  whom  God  had  forgotten  ;  but  that  St. 
Francis  cared  for  them  was  proof  enough  that  God  had 
not  forgotten.  Not  instead  of  God,  but  as  identical 
with  His  gracious  presence  and  care^  does  human  good- 
ness do  its  work.  Out  of  humanity  come  the  Divine 
helpers  of  humanity.  The  Eternal  sympathy  and  pity 
come  to  men  through  men.  The  Father  works  through 
His  children.  God  in  the  world  reconciling  it  to  Him- 
self means  God  in  human  hearts  and  lives  ;  God  in 
Christ  and  in  men,  whom  Christ  inspires  ;  God  choosing 
and  using  men  to  be  the  channels  of  His  love,  the 
messengers  of  His  mercy  and  grace,  the  doers  of  His 
will  and  work. 

We  need  not  care  therefore  to  make  Luther's  bold 


250  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

saying  any  less  emphatic.  It  is  true  that  God  needs 
strong  men  and  cannot  do  without  them  in  producing 
the  best  results  in  the  life  of  the  world  and  the  Church. 
It  is  sometimes  asked,  Has  not  our  religion  won  all 
its  greatest  triumphs  through  feeble  instrumentalities  ? 
No  !  must  be  the  answer  to  every  one  acquainted  with 
the  alphabet  of  Christian  history.  Christianity  has  won 
its  way  in  the  world  largely  by  converting  giants  like 
Paul,  Augustine,  WyclifFe,  Luther,  Knox,  Wesley, 
Chalmers  and  Maurice,  and  filling  their  hearts  with 
the  spirit  of  consecration  to  the  service  of  God  and 
'man.  Upon  this  rock  of  commanding  personality 
Christ  built  and  still  builds  the  Church  that  is  truly 
His.  Not  weak  and  foolish  men,  not  timid,  mediocre 
conventional  Christians,  not  associations  and  committees, 
but  strong  devoted  men,  men  with  the  burning  heart 
that  kindles  its  own  fires  of  sacrifice,  are  to-day,  as 
yesterday.  His  reliance.  Yes  !  God  needs  strong  men. 
His  kingdom  will  never  come  in  this  world  without 
them.  Let  us  never  doubt  it  for  one  moment.  Worse 
than  the  most  hopeless  pessimism  is  the  shallow  optim- 
ism of  those  who  are  content  to  repeat  as  their  creed, 
"  Truth  and  Right  are  mighty  and  must  prevail."  But 
Truth  and  Right  have  never  yet  prevailed  in  this  world 
without  the  help  of  true  and  righteous  men.  Let  men 
seek  to  escape  from  personal  responsibilities  and  relax 
their  energies,  and  lo  !  the  faith  and  freedom  won  by 
martyrs  and  patriots  will  soon  fall  confounded,  fanaticism 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  251 

will  soon  displace  a  reasonable  and  spiritual  Christianity, 
superstition  will  soon  reassert  its  sway,  and  passions 
leap  forth  again  which  will  throw  civilisation  back  into 
barbarism  and  chaos.  There  are  those  who  trust  to 
the  spirit  of  the  age  to  preserve  the  costly  gains  of 
history  and  to  bring  about  the  reforms  in  State  and 
Church  which  may  still  be  required  ;  but  the  spirit  of 
the  age  is  no  impersonal  thing, — it  is  the  spirit  of  the 
truest  and  best  men.  They  create  and  quicken  it  if 
it  is  a  true,  a  righteous,  a  godly  and  Christian  spirit. 

Men  and  women  !  what  are  we  doing  in  the  way 
of  helping  God  to  create  and  redeem  His  world  .''  Let 
us  not  hinder  that  work  by  our  indifference,  by  our 
cowardice,  by  our  epicurean  softness  and  daintiness, 
by  our  politic,  compromising  tempers  and  practices,  by 
our  small-mindedness  and  selfishness.  Let  us  bestir 
ourselves  in  every  noble  way.  Not  without  us  are 
God's  triumphs  to  come.  Not  without  us  is  His  will 
to  be  done  on  earth.  We  are  often  told  that  the 
supreme  need  of  the  world  and  the  Church  is  that 
of  able  and  capable  leaders  ;  but  what  is  the  use  of 
able  and  capable  leaders  if  they  cannot  secure  able  and 
capable  followers  ?  Let  us  not  underrate  our  influ- 
ence. Every  life  tells.  It  is  to  the  faithfulness  of  this 
and  that  man,  and  of  this  and  that  woman,  we  owe 
all  that  is  best  in  our  life.  And  whenever  a  good 
cause  fails,  here  and  everywhere,  it  is  due  to  the  want 
of  noble  and  persistent  fidelity  in  individuals.     Do  you 


252  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

ask  what  you  can  do  for  the  kingdom  of  God  in  your 
country,  in  your  city,  in  your  village  ? — you  can  at 
least  give  to  it  one  life  that  is  utterly  true  and  faithful, 
one  life  loyal  to  the  core  to  the  will  and  work  of  God. 
It  is  not  enough  to  contribute  your  criticism  ;  you  must 
contribute  yourselves,  yield  yourselves  to  God,  become 
His  fellow-workers,  be  willing  to  suffer  that  others  may 
be  blessed,  to  fail  that  others  succeed,  to  die  that  others 
may  live.  This  is  what  it  means  to  be  a  Christian  ! 
Not  having  comfort  and  peace  and  blissful  expectations 
for  ourselves,  but  so  having  the  spirit  of  service  and 
sacrifice  that  we  cannot  help  entering  into  the  Son's 
work  which  is  also  His  Father's,  and  cannot  help  giving 
ourselves  to  the  things  which  were  all  in  all  to  Jesus 
Christ  and  for  which  He  laid  down  His  life. 

Fellow-workers  with  God  !  This  is  what  you  and 
I  are  here  for  in  this  world  :  this  is  why  we  are  endowed 
with  various  gifts  and  why  we  ought  to  train  them  to 
the  utmost  and  make  the  best  of  them  :  this  is  why  we 
are  placed  in  different  spheres  and  stations,  with  different 
opportunities  and  duties.  We  are  here  where  we  are, 
and  we  have  what  we  have,  that  we  may  each  help  God 
to  create  and  redeem,  to  build  up  and  perfect  His  world. 
Are  we  doing  it — you  in  your  way  and  I  in  mine  ? 
The  only  real  failure  in  life,  believe  me,  is  to  do  less 
than  our  best.  What  though  life  grows  harder  as  we 
grow  older,  and  instead  of  more  chances  of  relief  and 
rest  it  brings  only  new  goings  forth  to  work  and  to 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  253 

labour,  and  new  and  sterner  calls  to  high  service  and 
sacrifice  ? — this  is  surely  the  joy  and  glory  of  life  to 
those  who,  working  hardest,  are  conscious  that  they 
are  working  with  God,  co-operating  with  the  Divine 
order  of  the  world  and  the  one  increasing  purpose 
which  runs  through  the  ages. 

Fellow-workers  with  God  !  This  is  a  vision  of  life 
at  its  prophetic  best,  and  when  one  realises  its  meaning 
it  becomes  his  greatest  inspiration.  There  is  no  dead 
line  in  that  man's  work  and  no  slackening  of  effort. 
He  keeps  his  faith,  his  freshness  of  spirit,  his  enthusiasm, 
unto  the  end.  Nothing  seems  beyond  possibility, 
nothing  too  great  to  hope,  too  lofty  to  dare,  too  difficult 
to  accomplish.  Oh,  it  is  good,  it  is  inspiring,  to  see  our 
work  set  in  these  large,  infinite  relations.  Considered 
by  ourselves  and  in  isolation  from  the  vast  whole  of 
things,  we  are  frail  and  vanishing,  our  work  little  and 
broken,  and  our  service  of  small  value  ;  but  joined 
to  the  life  and  work  of  Eternal  God,  our  feebleness 
is  clothed  with  strength,  around  our  fragmentariness 
there  flows  the  Divine  completeness,  and  our  mortal  is 
clothed  with  immortality.  In  union  with  God  we  have 
at  our  command  inexhaustible  power,  power  to  do  and 
to  suffer,  power  to  bear  up  under  the  praise  and  the 
blame  of  men,  power  to  persevere  when  hopes  are 
realised  and  when  hopes  are  disappointed.  We  know 
and  are  persuaded  that  we  are  fellow-workers  with  Him 
whose  purposes  cannot  fail,  who  gathers  into  His  infinite 


254  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

work  all  good  and  faithful  work  done  by  men  among 
mankind,  and  whose  power  and  wisdom,  goodness  and 
love,  are  moving  and  directing  all  things  toward  a 
glorious  and  immortal  end — the  new  heavens  and  the 
new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  To  our 
work,  then,  and  to  our  labour  until  the  evening  ! 

"  Death  closes  all ;  yet  something,  ere  the  end. 
Some  work  of  noble  note  may  yet  be  done." 

And  now  unto  Him  from  whom  we  come,  in  whom 
we  live,  to  whom  we  go,  and  who  is  able  to  keep  us 
from  falling  and  to  preserve  us  faithful  unto  our  life's 
end,  unto  Him  be  glory  for  ever  and  ever.     Amen. 

A  Prayer 

O  Thou  who  hast  appointed  unto  us  our  place  and 
work  in  life,  it  is  our  prayer  that  in  our  daily  labour 
and  striving  we  may  be  obedient  to  every  intimation  of 
Thy  will,  and  be  workers  together  with  Thee  in  helping 
Thy  world  and  Thy  children.  Endue  us  with  the 
spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding,  the  spirit  of  power 
and  courage  and  love.  Make  and  keep  us  simple  and 
true  in  heart,  lowly  in  personal  claim,  earnest  in  purpose, 
and  ever  faithful,  in  all  time  of  our  wealth  and  in  all 
time  of  our  tribulation,  to  our  calling  of  God.  May 
we  never  be  overcome  of  evil,  and  never  grow  weary 
in  well-doing.     In  sympathy  and  service  may  we  draw 


THE  DAY'S  WORK  255 

nearer  and  nearer  to  our  fellows,  and  to  every  needy 
cause,  while  for  us  the  light  shines  and  the  darkness 
lingers.  And  when  our  day's  work  is  done,  may  we, 
through  Thy  grace,  be  able  to  render  our  account  with 
joy,  as  becometh  disciples  of  Him  who  did  Thy  perfect 
will  perfectly,  and  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest 
Him  to  do.     Amen. 


;  Vot/f  cA.¥^  vvi  I ,  jr\^/xi^  -  1^5^, 


ARE   WE   FORGETTING   GOD  ?  ^^ 

"  Beware  lest  thou  forget  the  Lord  thy  God  in  not  keeping  the  com- 
mandments which  I  command  thee  this  day." — Deut.  viii.  ii. 

Is  it  not  Strange  that  men  should  be  told  not  to  forget 
their  God  ?  Cardinal  Newman's  memorable  saying, 
that  there  are  two,  and  only  two,  luminously  self-evident 
beings,  "myself  and  my  Creator,"  brings  out  clearly 
and  impressively  what  is  the  essential  fact  of  man's 
spiritual  life — the  soul's  personal  and  direct  relation  to 
God — a  fact  in  which  all  religious  certitude  may  be 
truly  said  to  lie.  It  is  difficult  at  first  to  believe  that 
any  one  can  seriously  think  of  himself  and  his  life  with- 
out thinking  of  God.  For  there  is  no  one  with  whom 
man  has  so  much  to  do  as  with  God :  always  and 
everywhere  and  in  everything  he  has  to  do  with  God — 
in  all  the  operations  of  Nature,  in  all  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  in  all  his  relations  to  his  fellows,  in  all  the 
circumstances  and  events  of  his  outward  life,  and  in  all 
the  movements  of  his  spirit — and  yet  he  requires  to  be 
told  not  to  forget  God  ! 

It  is  a  strange  and  sorrowful  fact,  but  none  the  less 

256 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         257 

a  fact,  that  the  temptation  to  forget  God  is  one  which 
has  always  beset  men.  Side  by  side  with  the  persistent 
and  pathetic  struggle  of  mankind  in  all  ages  after  God 
we  see  efforts  quite  as  persistent  and  quite  as  pathetic 
to  forget  God.  In  the  Old  Testament  we  often  find 
the  prophets  of  Israel  pleading  with  their  people  not  to 
forget  God.  In  all  times  their  most  serious  teachers 
have  warned  men  against  the  same  danger.  "The 
beginning  and  the  end  of  what  is  the  matter  with  us 
in  these  days,"  said  Thomas  Carlyle,  "  is  that  we  have 
forgotten  God." 

To  the  vast  mass  of  men  to-day  as  yesterday,  God  is 
not  a  Reality — the  one  great,  awful,  and  blessed  Reality 
of  life — but  a  mere  name  in  the  background  of  their 
feeling  and  thought.  There  is  no  presence  from  the 
sense  of  which  they  are  so  anxious  to  escape  as  the 
Presence  of  God  ;  no  claims  which  are  so  neglected  and 
ignored  as  the  claims  of  God  ;  and  no  relationship 
which  is  less  realised  and  less  cultivated  than  the  relation- 
ship of  the  soul  to  Him  who  is  pre-eminently  the 
One  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  Their  remembrance 
of  Him,  when  they  do  remember  Him,  is  like  one  of 
those  dreamy  fancies  which  sometimes  visit  us  as  if  we 
had  lived  before  in  another  state  of  existence.  Other 
objects  fill  their  hearts  and  minds — objects  which  come 
between  them  and  God. 

It  is  possible  for  men  to  forget  God,  and  yet  not  to 
manifest  that  forgetfulness  to  their  fellows,  nor  to  be 

17 


258  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

conscious  of  it  themselves.  What  was  once  said  of 
Israel  is  still  true  of  many  :  "  This  people  honoureth  / 
me  with  their  lips,  but  their  heart  is  far  from  me."  In 
their  easy-going  religion  it  does  not  trouble  them  that 
God  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts  ;  that  they  are  without 
the  sense  of  God,  if  not  altogether  as  feeling,  yet  as 
motive  —  a  practical  human  motive.  Their  church- 
attendance  is  a  Sunday  morning  custom  and  little  more. 
Even  in  the  hour  and  act  of  worship  they  forget  their 
God  in  a  thousand  vain  thoughts.  Their  lives  would 
be  different  in  every  way  if  they  truly  remembered  God. 
You  are  familiar  with  the  pathetic  confession  of 
Professor  Clifford,  whose  life  was  so  brilliant  yet  so 
tragic — "  The  heavens  are  now  empty,  the  earth  soul- 
less and  the  Great  Companion  dead."  Overmastered 
by  the  spirit  he  had  invoked,  carried  away  by  deeply 
subtle  difficulties  of  which  simpler  ages  and  simpler 
lives  are  ignorant,  all  that  he  knew  and  felt  was  that 
for  him  the  world  had  lost  its  wonder  and  bloom, 
life  its  freshness  and  charm  ;  that  he  was  spiritually 
desolate,  alone  in  the  universe,  unloved  and  uncared 
for  save  by  his  kind — for  "  the  Great  Companion  is 
dead."  Yet  to  doubt  God  is  not  to  lose  God  :  the 
Heavenly  Father  was  near,  we  may  be  sure,  to  that 
troubled  soul  in  its  gloom  as  He  was  to  the  Cross 
when  the  cry  came  out  of  its  darkness,  "  Why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me  ? "  But  one  often  thinks  that  if 
some  clear  and  undeniable  voice  could  call  across  the 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         259 

world  "  The  Great  Companion  is  dead,"  there  are 
many  people  here  and  everywhere,  within  as  well  as 
without  the  churches,  in  whose  lives  such  a  tremendous 
announcement  would  not  and  could  not  make  much  y^- 
practical  difference,  so  little,  alas  !  so  little,  is  God  to 
them. 

To  forget  God  is  the  temptation  which  besets  every 
one  of  us.  He  with  whom  we  have  to  do  is  always 
near  us,  yet  it  is  only  now  and  then  that  we  re- 
member Him,  have  any  real  impression  of  His  being 
and  glory,  any  vital  and  vivid  apprehension  of  His 
Presence,  of  what  He  is  to  us  and  of  what  we  owe  to 
Him.  A  conviction  which  ought  to  equal  in  force  that 
which  we  possess  of  our  own  existence  is  often  dim  and 
faint,  ready  to  fade  away  and  perish.  As  a  consequence 
we  do  not  see  our  actions  in  relation  to  God  and  fail  to 
discern  the  rightness  or  the  wrongness  which  they 
derive  from  that  relation.  Not  till  this  conviction  is 
restored  to  us  in  its  freshness  and  strength,  not  till  we 
live  remembering  God,  will  our  life  be  what  it  ought 
to  be. 

We  often  say,  God  is  as  near  to  us  as  ever  He  was 
to  Hebrew  prophet  or  saint,  and  it  is  quite  true. 
We  have  outgrown  the  idea  of  relations  held  by  men 
of  olden  time  with  God  which  cannot  be  held  by  men 
in  this  our  day.  The  story  of  God  with  man,  of  which 
the  Bible  is  the  record,  is  not,  we  are  persuaded,  an 
exceptional    episode  in  the  life  of   our  race,  and  does 


26o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

not  stand  alone  in  any  artificial  isolation.  The  two 
realities  out  of  which  our  sacred  literature  came — the 
spirit  of  man  and  the  spirit  of  God — are  for  ever  in 
this  world.  They  do  not  change  with  the  philosophies 
and  theologies  which  seek  to  interpret  and  define  them. 
Religion  cannot  live  merely  as  ancient  history. 

The  difference  between  age  and  age  considered  from 
this  point  of  view  is  not  that  God  is  at  certain  times 
nearer  to  men  than  He  is  at  other  times,  but  that  the 
souls  of  men  are  not  always  equally  sensitive  to  His 
presence,  God  is  just  as  near  as  He  is  felt  to  be  near.  A 
presence  of  which  one  is  not  conscious  is  as  no  presence. 

The  Bible  is  the  story  of  men  to  whom  the  soul  and 
God  were  the  two  beings  that  stood  out  luminously 
self-evident — the  story  of  men  who  had  mastered  the 
art  of  living  with  God.  The  secret  of  its  power  is  not 
to  be  found  in  its  science  which  plainly  reflects  the 
knowledge  of  the  time,  not  in  its  poetry,  not  in  its 
ethical  and  theological  ideas,  but  in  the  sense  of  com- 
munion with  God  which  inspires  and  pervades  it.  It 
is  this  which  has  made  it  in  a  transcendent  sense  the 
record  of  religious  inspiration  and  revelation  for  man- 
kind. The  Hebrew  was  originally  the  man  who,  as 
Charles  Lamb  said  of  Coleridge,  had  "  a  hunger  for  eter- 
nity," the  man  who  had  a  real  passion  for  God,  to 
whom  God  was  in  truth  the  Great  Companion,  the  one 
Supreme  Presence  in  the  world,  the  atmosphere  of  his 
life,  his  everlasting  refuge  and  home.     In  this  age  of 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD?         261 

Christ  we  have  a  truer  and  larger  thought  of  God  into 
which  we  can  put  everything  lovable  and  adorable,  and 
for  that  we  ought  to  be  deeply  grateful  ;  but  this,  after 
all,  is  the  vital  question — Is  God  as  much  of  a  presence 
in  our  life,  are  we  in  our  hearts  as  conscious  of  Him, 
as  were  the  prophets  and  saints  of  Israel  ?  For  the 
Hebrew's  sense  of  God  is  not  the  extravagance  but 
the  essence  of  religion,  the  very  heart  and  meaning  of 
personal  religion.  Religion  is  a  purely  personal  rela- 
tion to  God,  and  the  religion  of  Jesus  the  consummation 
and  perfection  of  that  relation.  The  truly  religious 
man  is  the  man  to  whom  God  is  no  mere  name,  remi- 
niscence, tradition,  opinion,  doctrine,  the  memory  of  a 
child's  faith,  the  first  article  of  a  creed,  a  sigh  of  the 
heart,  a  dream  of  the  soul,  a  poetical  fancy  that  visits 
him  in  the  twilight,  by  the  sea  or  among  the  mountains, 
the  sum  and  nexus  of  the  elemental  forces,  or  the 
symbol  of  the  unknown  quantity  in  the  universe,  but 
the  one  luminous,  grand  and  gracious  Reality  of  life  ; 
the  one  Presence  from  whom  he  cannot  and  would  not 
escape:  with  him  in  the  darkness  his  sure  protection, 
with  him  in  the  light  fairer  than  any  dawn. 

".  .   .   .   He  found  some  jubilee  in  thinking  : 
For  his  one  thought  was  God, 
In  that  thought  he  abode, 
For  ever  in  that  thought  more  deeply  sinking." 

It  is  not  what  we  can  know  and  understand  of  God, 
but  what  we  feel,  experience,  realise,  that  is  the  salva- 


262  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

tion  and  inspiration  of  the  life.  The  man  of  whom  it 
is  true  that  he  lives  all  his  life  consciously  in  the 
presence  of  God  is  the  genuinely  religious  man.  No 
matter  what  else  he  has  or  has  not,  he  has  the  root  of 
the  matter  in  him — that  which  is  itself  religion,  the 
purpose  and  end  of  all  revelations  and  mediations,  of 
all  means  and  ministries.  He  is  living  in  the  reality 
of  religion,  let  his  theory  of  it  be  what  it  may.  He  is 
at  the  centre  and  heart  of  all  there  is  ;  and  when  a  man 
has  reached  God  and  is  at  home  with  God,  his  soul  in 
spiritual  contact  and  communion  with  the  Soul  of  the 
universe,  we  need  not  be  anxious  to  criticise  the  way 
he  has  got  there,  nor  very  much  care  how  he  describes 
himself  ecclesiastically  or  defines  his  belief.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  man  may  claim  the  belief  of  apostles  and 
saints  as  his  own,  and  be  in  what  he  considers  the  best 
of  church  connections  ;  and  yet  if  God  is  not  a  real 
presence  in  his  life,  and  he  has  no  knowledge  of  God 
that  is  derived  directly  from  personal  experience,  he 
is  still  ignorant  of  the  alphabet  of  religion.  The  vital 
recognition  of  God  is,  alas  !  rare  even  among  those 
who  are  more  than  nominal  believers.  And  this  is  a 
great  loss  ;  when  one  looks  at  things  aright,  the  greatest 
loss  of  life. 

"  Beware  lest  thou  forget  the  Lord  thy  God."  It  is 
an  admonition  this  which  we  all  require.  There  is  no 
sin  more  common  than  the  sin  of  forgetting  God.  It 
is  the  besetting  sin,  not  only  of  youth,  but  of  middle 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         263 

age  and  old  age.  It  is  the  sin  not  only  of  the  foolish 
and  frivolous,  the  sensual  and  worldly,  but  of  men 
working  hard  at  their  professions  and  trades,  of  women 
absorbed  in  family  cares  and  social  engagements,  of 
teachers  and  students,  of  politicians  and  philanthropists, 
of  preachers  and  theologians  tempted  to  make  ideas  of 
God  do  duty  for  God.  It  is,  indeed,  not  difficult  to 
forget  God.  God  is  in  the  world  and  in  our  life,  but 
not  in  any  such  way  that  we  cannot  escape  from  the 
sense  of  His  presence.  Not  any  of  us  are  ever  over- 
looked or  forgotten  before  Him,  but  it  is  not  often 
that  we  feel  compelled  to  remember  Him.  He  does 
not  visibly  interfere  either  with  the  course  of  things 
or  with  the  actions  of  men.  He  is  the  Force  behind 
all  forces,  the  Law  behind  all  laws,  the  Life  behind 
all  that  lives,  yet  to  many  men  He  seems  afar  off 
and  appears  to  do  little,  if  anything.  This  is  a  world 
in  which  we  can  be  unbelievers  as  well  as  believers, 
forget  as  well  as  remember  God.  It  is  a  world  in 
which  prosperity  and  pleasure  can  be  more  easily  secured 
by  the  self-seeking  and  unscrupulous  than  by  the  good, 
and  where  unreserved  devotion  to  the  will  of  God  in 
the  business  of  life  has  no  direct  and  inevitable  tendency 
to  bring  men  what  is  considered  fortune.  It  is  seldom 
that  to  God's  noblest  and  most  faithful  sons  the  world's 
prizes  come,  though  there  is  always  a  sure  and  deep 
reward  in  the  unseen  realm  of  the  inner  and  moral  life. 
The  kingdom  of  God  ruleth  over  all,  but  its  epochs  are 


264  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

moral.  Judgment  is  always  done,  but  not  often  in 
such  a  way  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  being 
done  by  those  who  walk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith,  and 
are  blind  to  the  spiritual  aspects  of  life  and  to  the 
tendency  and  final  issue  of  things. 

God,  I  repeat,  does  not  compel  us  to  remember 
Him.  His  way  with  His  children  is  not  the  way  of 
coercion,  but  of  influence.  We  may  forget  Him  if  we 
choose.  He  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks,  but  He 
does  not  force  an  entrance.  He  is  nearer  to  us  than 
we  ever  dream,  but  never  so  near  that  we  are  moved 
against  our  wills.  The  world  and  life  are  shaped  for 
the  education  of  moral  beings — beings  whose  awful 
prerogative  it  is  that  they  can  forget  as  well  as 
remember  God. 

And  there  is  nothing  in  which  we  may  not  forget 
God — all  the  common  interests  and  activities  of  life, 
study,  recreation,  business,  friendship,  love,  science, 
art,  politics,  philanthropy,  the  history  and  philosophy 
of  religion,  theological  disputes,  ecclesiastical  strifes, 
pleasant  Sunday  services,  and  all  the  excitements  which 
we  dignify  with  the  name  of  religious  work  in  these 
days.  There  is  no  object,  either  good  or  bad,  on  which 
we  eagerly  concentrate  our  attention  that  may  not  so 
grow  on  the  inner  vision  and  spread  itself  before  the 
soul  as  to  hide  all  that  is  beyond — even  God  ;  as  to 
banish  every  thought  of  Him  whom  above  all  others  we 
ought  to  be  ever  ready  and  glad  to  remember.     We 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         265 

know  from  the  terrible  inward  evidence  of  experience 
how  we  lose  by  sin,  by  habitual  wrongdoing,  the  power 
to  remember  and  realise  God  ;  and  not  alone  by  those 
grave  and  flagrant  transgressions  which  affect  a  man's 
whole  moral  nature  and  his  whole  spiritual  attitude, 
but  by  sins  we  call  venial  and  which  involve  no  outward 
wickedness,  which  are  indeed  hardly  recognised  as 
sins,  and  which  men  may  go  on  committing  all  their 
days  without  any  suspicion  of  their  guilt  and  danger. 
There  may  be  no  striking  moral  fault,  no  betrayal  of 
duty,  only  some  petty  vanity  or  pride,  a  respectable 
selfishness,  a  reputable  self-indulgence,  not  even  evil 
things  done  but  good  things  left  undone,  which  yet 
have  the  effect  of  making  the  soul  less  and  less  sensitive 
to  God,  and  of  hardening  the  heart.  A  man  may  have 
all  his  thought  and  feeling  so  drawn  toward  the  petty 
things  round  him  and  toward  his  own  worldly  interests 
and  private  comforts,  that  there  is  in  his  soul  no  sense 
of  responsibility  to  a  Divine  Judge,  no  conscious  feeling 
of  any  relations  other  than  those  of  home  and  friendship 
and  business,  no  conscious  relations  at  least  with  the 
unseen  and  eternal.  He  lives  an  honourable  life  and 
keeps  the  way  of  truth  and  rectitude  loyally,  but  not 
for  God.  He  makes  his  plans  and  pursues  his  schemes, 
but  without  any  reference  to  the  will  of  God.  God  is 
forgotten  in  the  very  use  and  enjoyment  of  God's  gifts. 
In  his  occupations  and  transactions,  in  his  ways  of 
doing  business,  seeking  pleasure,  spending  money,  and 


266  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

passing  time,  the  man  forgets  God.  It  cannot  be 
honestly  said  that  God  counts  as  a  force  in  his  life. 
Yes  !  Work  and  amusement,  family  and  friendship, 
are  what  we  each  can  live  for  wholly,  and  in  them  all 
forget  Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do  in  all  the 
relations  and  interests  of  our  passing  days. 

And  this  forgetfulness  of  God  may  be  found  not 
only  in  connection  with  respectable  behaviour,  but 
also  in  connection  with  much  formal  and  conventional 
religiousness,  and  even  with  much  lively  interest  in 
theological  themes.  You  remember  in  Shakespeare's 
I  Henry  V.  Mistress  Quickly's  account  of  the  death  of 
jFalstaff.  FalstafF  was  very  sick,  so  he  cried  out,  said 
/the  woman,  " '  God,  God,  God,'  three  or  four  times. 
Now  I,  to  comfort  him,  bid  him  not  think  of  God  ;  I 
hoped  there  was  no  need  to  trouble  himself  with  any 
such  thoughts  yet."  To  how  many  is  God  little  more 
than  an  unwelcome  thought  which  they  must  recall 
in  the  great  hours  of  living  and  dying — a  name  they 
must  utter  especially  when  they  are  sick  and  have  not 
many  days  to  live  '^.  It  may  be  no  doubt  a  very  insig- 
nificant part  which  the  thought  of  God  plays  in  their 
lives ;  but  they  cannot  banish  it,  altogether  from  their 
minds,  and  cannot  escape  entirely  from  that  sense  of 
the  presence  of  God  which  is  the  echo  in  their  hearts 
of  the  Divine  Life  in  the  world.  There  are  times 
when  their  habitual  indifference  is  broken  down ;  face 
to   face   with  death,  or    during  the  discipline  of  some 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         267 

great  sorrow  or  shame,  they  are  stirred  with  unwonted 
emotion  and  are  moved  to  pray ;  but  the  visible  order 
of  things  commands  their  real  interest  and  strength, 
and  the  thought  of  God  has  no  shaping  or  controlHng 
influence  on  their  daily  habit  and  life.  They  may  have 
little  difficulty,  perhaps,  in  persuading  themselves  that 
they  do  remember  their  Creator,  when  in  point  of  fact 
they  only  do  not  forget  Him  quite  utterly. 

The  forgetting  of  God  passes  through  many  stages. 
It  exists  in  various  degrees.  It  is,  we  would  fain  hope, 
in  few  cases  an  entire  forgetfulness  never  interrupted  by 
a  single  memory  of  His  goodness  and  greatness,  of 
His  authority  and  will.  Who  is,  or  who  can  be,  entirely 
forgetful  of  God  ?  And  yet  forgetfulness  of  God  ever 
tends  to  grow  and  increase  until  one  does  not  wish  to 
remember  God  at  all.  It  may  be  something  one  falls 
Into  thoughtlessly  at  first,  but  it  grows  and  grows  till 
things  are  actually  avoided  which  suggest  the  great 
remembrance,  and  means  are  taken  not  only  to  prevent 
but  to  drown  serious  thought,  until  men  can  live  long 
days  and  weeks  without  thinking  of  God — transacting 
their  business,  following  their  amusements,  employing 
their  time,  spending  their  money  and  expending  their 
powers  without  any  thought  of  the  uses  to  which  God 
means  they  should  apply  their  gifts,  studying  only  how 
to  please  themselves,  not  Him.  Consider  this,  ye  who 
are  beginning  to  find  It  easy  to  forget  God,  beginning 
to   be    so   absorbed   by   outward    things  that  you  are 


268  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

allowing  yourselves  less  and  less  leisure  for  pursuing 
the  things  which  belong  to  your  peace;  thirsting  so 
little  for  God  and  so  much  after  everything  else  ;  so  in- 
dolent and  apathetic  in  prayer,  so  active  and  strenuous 
after  business  or  pleasure  or  social  distinction.  Beware 
lest  you  go  from  carelessness  to  worse,  and  begin  to 
think  and  to  act  on  the  thought  that  there  is  not  so 
much  in  religion  after  all.  The  mind  seeking  to  be 
consistent  soon  frames  a  theory  to  justify  itself  to  itself; 
our  opinions  are  much  influenced  by  our  wishes.  What 
we  do  not  wish  to  remember  we  easily  forget,  and  by- 
and-by  easily  doubt  and  easily  deny — rejecting  as  false 
what  we  want  to  be  false. 

Very  few  people,  very  few  even  of  the  best  people, 
think  enough  of  God.  That  He  is  our  Creator  and 
Father,  our  Saviour  and  Judge,  that  we  have  to  do 
with  Him  in  this  world  and  in  the  world  to  come,  that 
He  has  the  sole  and  absolute  claim  upon  our  obedience 
— this  we  all  profess  to  believe;  but  if  we  believed  it  in 
a  true  and  living  way,  if  we  realised  it,  if  it  were  a  real 
power  within  us,  how  different  our  lives  would  be  ! 
It  is  not  possible  that  we  can  truly  believe  in  God 
and  yet  not  be  very  different  persons  from  what  we 
would  be  if  we  did  not  so  believe  in  Him.  By  not 
thinking  of  God  often  enough  and  deeply  enough, 
what  a  safeguard  from  evil  and  what  an  inspiration  to 
good  do  we  lose  ! 

*'  I  have  set  God  always  before  me,"  said  a  Hebrew 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         269 

saint  long  ago,  "  therefore  I  shall  not  be  moved."  It  is  a 
favourite  figure  of  the  Hebrew  poets  that  God  is  the 
rock  of  man's  salvation — the  true  foundation,  that  is,  of 
human  life  and  the  secret  of  its  strength  and  stability. 
What  would  I  not  give  to  impress  upon  you  as  I  feel 
it,  that  a  life  in  which  God  is  not  remembered  but 
habitually  forgotten  is  a  life  without  the  best  moral 
protection  and  stimulus  !  What  takes  from  a  man  the 
sense  of  relationship  and  responsibility  to  God  and 
leaves  him  without  the  sanctions  and  inspirations  drawn 
from  the  invisible  and  eternal  world,  takes  with  it  much 
of  his  moral  energy  and  stamina,  impoverishes  his  life 
in  every  way  and  at  every  point,  narrows  his  mind, 
depresses  his  imagination,  enfeebles  his  conscience,  robs 
him  of  much  strength  for  enduring  trial  and  resisting 
temptation,  makes  him  less  sensitive  as  the  years 
multiply  upon  him  to  high  ideals,  less  aspiring,  less 
enthusiastic,  less  heroic.  You  can  see  that  this  is  so  for 
yourselves,  if  you  patiently  watch  and  study  the  life 
around  you,  ay,  your  own  life — the  life  within,  which 
best  interprets  the  life  without. 

Wherever  God  is  not  remembered  but  forgotten  we 
often  see  a  depreciation  of  the  worth  and  sanctity  even 
of  the  physical  life,  a  disposition  to  hold  it  cheaply  and 
in  the  hour  of  bitter  disappointment  to  throw  it  away 
altogether.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  decay  of 
faith  has  not  a  little  to  do  with  the  loosening  of  the  ties 
which  bind  man  to  life.     It  is  not  easy  outward  con- 


270  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

ditions  which  bind  man  to  life.  The  pessimism  of 
recent  years  is  not  so  much  the  outcome  of  struggle  as 
of  ease,  and  the  rejection  of  life  which  frequently  goes 
along  with  it  is  due,  not  to  impatient  resentment  against 
hardship,  poverty,  and  pain,  but  to  the  exhaustions  of 
worldliness  and  irreligion. 

But  there  are  worse  losses  than  that  of  the  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  physical  life  involved  in  the  loss  of  the 
believing  heart.  Without  the  vital  recognition  of  God 
and  His  will  all  the  best  things  in  human  life  and 
human  society — the  love  of  truth  as  truth,  the  love  of 
right  as  right,  the  love  of  man  as  man — will  tend  to  grow 
weak  and  poor.  It  is  only  in  theory  that  morality — 
the  higher  morality,  at  least — is  independent  of  the 
sanctions  and  inspirations  of  religious  faith.  The  best 
sanctities  of  life  are  in  the  keeping  of  religion.  It  is 
to  minds  touched  with  the  awe  of  God  that  our  common 
relations  preserve  their  ideal  significance  and  the  noblest 
conceptions  of  duty  have  authority  and  fire.  The 
emphasis  placed  upon  ethical  culture  in  our  day  should 
escape  all  criticism.  But  ethics  must  have  a  foundation 
deeper  than  custom,  prudence,  selfish  calculation,  and 
worldly  expedience.  Morality,  as  distinct  from  mere 
prudential  self-interest,  cannot  exist  in  any  noble  form 
apart  from  faith  in  and  communion  with  the  living 
God.  Even  the  best  of  motives — public  benefit,  the 
good  of  posterity,  and  the  like — lack  power  to  kindle 
and  command.     Forgetting  God  it  will   be    easier    to 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD?         271 

forget    the  claims    of    the    higher    and   wider  life,  the 
claims  of  difficult  duty  and  the  claims  of  our  fellows. 

The  creed  of  a  few  of  the  finer  spirits  of  our  time 
finds  expression  in  Clough's  lines  : — 

"  It  seems  God's  newer  will 
We  should  not  think  at  all  of  Him,  but  turn 
And  of  the  world  that  He  has  given  us,  make 
What  best  we  can." 

It  is  as  if  they  thought  that  the  more  a  man  spent 
Godward  the  less  he  had  to  spend  on  purely  human 
interests,  that  the  more  he  was  alive  to  the  unseen  and 
eternal  world  the  less  he  cared  for  doing  his  best  in  the 
ways  of  earth  and  time.  Is  it  so  ?  Who  have  been  the 
best  citizens  of  this  world  ?  Who  have  done  the  most 
to  promote  all  those  true  and  fair  and  gracious  things 
which  make  the  world  attractive  and  build  human  life 
into  strength  and  beauty .''  Who  have  most  helped  the 
weak  and  the  wronged,  the  poor  and  the  suffering .? 
Have  they  not  been  the  men  by  whom  God  has  been 
most  remembered — the  men  whose  very  sense  of  the 
Divine  Presence  and  Will  supplied  the  motive  and  sus- 
tained the  energy  of  their  efforts .?  From  their  com- 
munion with  God  came  their  life's  true  power — power 
to  serve  and  suffer.  The  love  that  urged  and  kept  them 
to  the  service  of  man  was  kindled  and  fed  at  heavenly 
altars.  And  it  is  well  to  reflect  on  this  side  of  things 
when  we  find  so  many  in  our  generation  striving  to 
banish   God  from   the  sphere  of    human  relations  and 


272  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

bent  on  trying  the  experiment  whether  our  great  human 
interests  cannot  be  advanced  without  any  recognition  of 
God  at  all.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  call  to  mind  the 
fact  that  nearly  all  the  important  philanthropic  move- 
ments of  the  last  century — the  movements  of  charity, 
education,  temperance,  liberty,  equality  of  opportunity 
for  all,  had  their  spring  and  motive  in  the  Christian 
thought  of  God  and  man  and  the  world.  In  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  civilisation  there  is  not  a  great  secular 
reform  which  did  not,  at  least  in  its  earlier  stages,  draw 
its  inspiration  from  a  religious  or  Christian  principle. 
And  the  remembrance  of  God — consciously  or  un- 
consciously— is  still  the  inspiration  of  nearly  all  the 
best  work  that  is  now  being  done  for  the  uplifting  of 
mankind.  It  is  work  that  depends  far  more  than  we 
think  on  the  constant  renewal  of  spiritual  faith  and 
hope  and  courage. 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  to  point  out  men  to-day  who  are 
pursuing  high  ideals  and  living  noble  and  beneficent 
lives  without  any  conscious  faith  in  God  ;  but  all,  or 
nearly  all  of  them  are  the  spiritual  heirs  of  men  whose 
souls  thirsted  for  God,  even  the  living  God,  and  they 
are  now  living  on  ideas  and  sentiments  and  by  habits 
which  they  would  never  have  known  but  for  their 
religious  training.  It  takes  more  than  one  generation 
to  get  religion  into  the  blood,  and  it  will  take  more  than 
one  to  get  it  out  of  the  blood.  What  Renan  said  of 
himself  many  others  might  say  of  themselves  :  "  I  feel 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         273 

that  my  life  is  governed  still  by  the  faith  which  I  have 
formally  renounced." 

But  there  can  be  little  doubt,  I  think,  as  to  what 
the  final  result  of  forgetting  God  will  be  in  the  life 
of  individuals,  families  and  nations.  Let  us  have  a 
generation  or  two  trained  not  to  remember  but  to 
forget  God,  and  let  this  practical  unbelief  have  full  scope 
for  working  its  perfect  work,  then  we  shall  see  how 
true  the  old  text  is  :  "  The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into 
hell,  and  all  the  nations  that  forget  God."  We  shall 
witness  serious  changes,  ay,  revolutions,  in  national 
character  and  life  which  an  ancient  Hebrew  would  have 
described  as  a  nation  being  destroyed  or  turned  into 
hell.  There  has  never  been  but  one  experiment  made 
on  a  large  scale  in  order  to  see  if  men  could  live 
together  in  society  while  forgetting  God,  and  we  know 
the  result.  It  was  found  that  God,  though  ignored, 
could  not  after  all  be  dispensed  with  in  the  life  of  a 
nation.  It  has  been  said  by  observant  French  philos- 
ophers that  the  effort  to  forget  God  in  France,  though 
it  lasted  only  twenty  years,  "  differentiates  the  inner 
thought  of  Frenchmen  from  that  of  any  European 
people."  The  sense  of  a  life  in  common  cannot  be 
kept  from  dying  out  along  with  the  dying  out  of 
religious  faith.^  Forgetting  God,  man  will  soon  forget 
his  fellows  and  cease  to  regard  himself  as  his  brother's 

^  "  No  permanent    cohesion  can  be  expected  on  the  mere  ethical 
ground  of  relation  between  man  and  man." — James  Martineau. 

18 


274  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

keeper.  No  argument  but  the  religious  and  Christian 
one  that  we  are  all  children  of  one  God  and  Father 
is  likely  to  tell  with  much  or  permanent  effect  against 
the  teaching  that  maintains  we  are  diminishing  the 
world's  force  by  taking  so  much  care  for  the  survival 
of  the  weak  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Let  the 
sense  of  responsibilty  to  an  invisible  Lord  and  Judge 
depart,  let  the  thought  of  God  cease  to  be  a  real  and 
living  power  in  human  society,  and  what  will  be  able 
to  check  and  restrain  the  huge  greed  which  builds  its 
fortunes  and  enjoys  its  luxuries  on  the  miseries  of  the 
many  ?  How  will  bitter  jealousies  and  hatreds  between 
different  classes  in  the  community  be  subdued  and 
overcome  ?  How  will  the  home  life  which  makes  a  fair 
and  strong  national  life  be  preserved — the  sanctity  of 
the  domestic  ties,  filial  reverence  and  duty,  and  all  that 
gathers  around  them  ?  Alexandre  Dumas,  writing  in 
the  dark  and  troubled  time  which  followed  the  Franco- 
German  war,  said  :  "  We  must  have  back  in  France  the 
ideas  of  God  and  marriage."  As  a  man  of  the  world 
he  could  not  help  seeing  that  forgetfulness  of  God 
meant  in  the  long  run  the  decay  of  his  nation's 
choicest  and  best  life.  Notwithstanding  religious 
fanaticism  and  bigotry  and  all  their  dire  effects, 
human  experience  proves  that  men  grow  in  the  sense 
of  duty  to  the  world  about  them  as  the  sense  of  their, 
relation  to  God  is  quickened  and  deepened,  and  that 
the  remembrance  of  God,  instead  of  being  the  paralysis, 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         275 

is   the   inspiration  of  all  noble  energy  in  every  noble 
direction. 

Beneath  all  the  relations  of  man  to  man  is  the  rela- 
tion of  man  to  God.  God  is  the  rock  or  foundation 
of  human  society.  The  future  of  this  or  any  country 
rests  ultimately  on  its  religious  faith,  on  the  amount 
and  quality  of  its  practical  recognition  of  God.  The 
Builder  and  Maker  of  the  enduring  city  or  nation  is 
God.  Build  on  injustice,  build  on  greed,  build  on  the 
lust  for  land  and  gold,  build  on  self-indulgence,  and 
sooner  or  later  the  stablest  civilisation  will  totter  to 
destruction.  This  is  the  message  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  the  nation,  and  it  indicates  the  service  which 
all  the  churches  can  render  to  the  nation.  They  have 
no  quick  and  easy  methods  of  solving  the  problems  of 
the  country  and  age,  but  in  proportion  as  they  keep 
alive  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  the  sense  of  God  and 
their  responsibility  to  Him,  and  help  to  train  new 
generations  of  men  who  remember  their  Creator  and 
obey  His  laws,  they  are  doing  more  for  the  nation  than 
the  political,  military  and  commercial  men  can  do  ;  they 
are  doing  the  one  work  which  is  most  necessary  to  social 
well-being,  to  the  preservation  of  the  best  elements  of 
civilisation  and  the  best  qualities  of  human  character. 
Again  and  again  have  eras  of  religious  revival — the 
revival  in  men  of  their  fading  sense  of  personal  and 
direct  relationship  to  God — expanded  into  eras  of 
national  and  social  salvation.     It  has  often  been  pointed 


276  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

out  how  the  preaching  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield  saved 
England  from  a  catastrophe  like  the  French  Revolution 
by  quickening  in  the  popular  heart  faith  in  a  living  God 
who  ruled  men  and  cared  for  them. 

We  have  to  be  constantly  on  guard  against  the  super- 
ficial and  faithless  interpretation  of  our  own  times,  yet 
I  feel  more  and  more  that  the  great  and  critical  battle 
is  not  between  various  forms  of  theological  belief  or 
ecclesiastical  organisation,  but  between  religion  and  no 
religion,  between  God  and  what  is  practically  no  God. 
Our  supreme  and  imminent  danger  is  not  superstition 
or  heresy,  or  what  may  be  regarded  as  superstition 
or  heresy,  but  the  growing  secularisation  of  life ;  not 
that  people  shall  have  misdirected  "or  wrongly  ex- 
pressed aspirations,  but  that  they  shall  have  no  aspira- 
tions at  all  —  that  they  grow  insensible  and  callous 
to  the  spiritual  and  Divine  aspects  of  life,  A  wave 
of  God-forgetfulness  seems  to  be  sweeping  over  the 
country. 

Let  us  pray  and  work  for  a  revival  in  the  churches 
of  a  real  and  great  faith  in  God  as  something  which 
must  precede  a  like  revival  in  the  community.  Instead 
of  vexing  and  hindering  one  another,  instead  of  giving 
ourselves  up  to  small  problems  and  sectarian  issues  and 
secular  entertainments  and  the  frivolities  of  life,  let  us 
magnify  the  spiritual  offices  of  the  Church,  and  through 
all  its  institutions  do  our  utmost  to  recall  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  men  to  the  reality  of  the  living  God — 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         277 

the  God  with  whom  they  have  to  do  now  and  here — 
and  thus  make  our  calling  and  election  sure.  General 
philanthropy,  politics  and  amusement,  we  ought  to  leave 
to  other  agencies.  Even  the  liberalisation  of  theological 
opinion  we  may  trust  very  much  to  the  progress  of 
knowledge  and  learning.  What  men  most  need  is  the 
sense  of  God's  presence  in  their  hearts  and  lives,  as 
motive  and  inspiration. 

And  we  must  not  forget  God  in  the  education  of  the 
children.  In  our  day  religious  education  in  the  public 
schools  of  the  country  has  been  sadly  mixed  up  with 
political  and  sectarian  strife,  but  I  cannot  help  saying 
now  and  here  that  it  will  be  a  pity  if  denominational 
rivalries  and  strong  party  feeling  should  drive  us  on 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  religious  teaching  as  the  only 
politic  and  peaceful  solution  of  a  difficult  problem. 
The  great  end  of  public  education  is  to  make  good 
citizens,  and  to  reach  that  end  there  must  be  in  the 
education  given  in  our  schools  a  large  moral  element, 
and  to  make  that  moral  element  truly  impressive  and 
effective  we  cannot  do  without  the  fundamental  sanc- 
tions and  inspirations  of  religion.  Reverence  is  vital  to 
morality,  and  morality  rooted  in  reverence  is  the  basis 
of  the  social  order.  Now  what  the  State  needs  of 
religion  in  order  to  promote  its  best  interests  is  that 
part  of  it  which  is  necessary  to  good  citizenship,  and 
that  is  just  the  part  which  is  common  to  all  the  religious 
communities  of  the  land,  namely,  faith  in  God  and  in 


278  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVl 

the  laws  of  right  living  as  the  Divine  will  concerning 
man  and  his  life. 

Let  me  plead  also  that  God  be  not  forgotten  in  our 
homes.  The  saddest  feature  in  the  life  of  many  people 
who  forget  God  is  not  the  evil  effect  of  indifference 
on  personal  character,  which  is  sad  enough,  but  the 
education  of  their  families  in  practical  heathenism. 
They  themselves  cannot  wholly  escape  from  the  religious 
influences  in  which  they  were  reared  ;  but  what  about 
their  children  growing  up  in  undevout  ways  and  learn- 
ing to  live  without  God  in  the  world  ?  A  family  in 
which  there  is  no  genuine  recognition  of  God  lacks 
the  strongest  bond  of  permanence,  and  the  sorrowful 
issue  of  this  forgetfulness  of  God  may  be  seen  to-day 
in  many  disturbed  and  broken  households,  and  in  the 
general  loosening  of  old  restraints  in  social  life. 

You  are  familiar  with  a  little  Roman  Catholic  book 
of  devotion  which  has  this  suggestive  title — "The 
Practice  of  the  Presence  of  God."  It  is  to  the  practice 
of  the  Presence  of  God  I  now  bid  you  all.  God  is  not 
a  question  that  can  wait,  because  life  will  not  wait,  duty 
will  not  wait,  temptation  will  not  wait,  sorrow  will  not 
wait ;  and  if  the  sense  of  the  Divine  Presence  be  the 
inspiration  we  need,  then  we  need  it  this  very  hour. 
"  I  find  great  comfort  in  God,"  said  James  Russell 
Lowell  in  his  last  days ;  but  to  find  great  comfort  in 
God  in  the  critical  hours  of  life  when  extraordinary 
and  tragical  things  are  happening,  our  souls  must  be 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD  ?         279 

prepared  beforehand  to  receive  it.  We  must  have 
trained  ourselves  by  meditation,  prayer  and  obedience 
to  be  sensitive  to  spiritual  influences. 

Dr.  Newman  in  his  wonderful  poem  The  Dream  of 
Gerontius  makes  the  angel  say  to  the  passing  soul  : 
"  It  is  the  very  energy  of  thought  that  keeps  thee  from 
thy  God."  It  is  not  the  energy  of  thought  that  keeps 
many  persons  from  God,  but  weakness  and  want  of 
thought.  We  do  not  think  deeply  enough  :  we  do  not 
stir  up  our  minds  to  take  hold  of  God.  We  let  God 
slip  out  of  our  minds  for  lack  of  recollection  and  reflec- 
tion. There  is  no  more  potent  cause  of  the  loss  of  the 
sense  of  God  than  the  unrest  and  hurry  in  which  we 
live  ;  and  this  busy  modern  life  seems  to  grow  ever 
more  exciting  and  exacting,  more  unfriendly  to  medita- 
tion and  calm.  In  one  of  his  essays  the  late  Professor 
Seeley  tells  us  that  the  literary  sense  perishes  for  want 
of  repose,  and  so,  only  more  so,  does  the  sense  of  God. 
"  To  enjoy  God  "  nothing  can  relieve  us  of  the  hard  and 
constant  work  of  religious  culture.  To  have  Him  as 
the  Great  Companion  of  our  days  the  still  hour  is 
absolutely  needed,  the  habit  of  quiet  and  serious  think- 
ing which  seems  so  much  out  of  fashion,  the  old  customs 
of  prayer  and  worship,  the  regular  and  systematic  dis- 
cipline of  our  spiritual  affections,  a  certain  attention  to 
observances  and  forms  which  were  often  in  past  days 
regarded  and  misused  as  ends,  but  which  are  still 
necessary   as    means   and    helps   to   the    remembrance 


2  8o  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

of  God.  You  will  find  in  the  autobiography  of  a 
remarkable  woman  of  our  time  this  sentence — given,  I 
think,  as  the  explanation  of  the  atheistic  stage  of  her 
strange  career  :  "  The  sense  of  God  gradually  fades  out 
of  the  life  of  those  who  never  pray."  Yes  !  we  leave 
ourselves  no  time  to  meditate  and  pray  ;  we  are  too 
busy  or  indolent  to  think  about  God  ;  we  allow 
our  natures  to  dissipate  among  a  variety  of  secular 
interests  which  every  year  grow  more  extended,  and 
then  we  complain  that  God  is  not  real  to  us,  that  we 
cannot  realise  His  Presence  and  Love  when  we  most 
need  to. 

Men   and  women  !     Are  you  remembering  or  for- 
getting God .?     Are  you  allowing  the  thought  of  God 
to  be  a  real  and  living  power  in  your  daily  life  ?     This 
is  no  question  to  be  dismissed  from  your  minds  with 
your  exit  from  this  church.     It  is  a  question  of  direct 
and    most    practical    interest   to  each  one  of  you — far 
more  than  any  question  concerning  your  health  or  your 
business  or   your  domestic    comforts    or  your  amuse- 
ments.    If    you    have   never    seriously    considered    it, 
consider   it   to-day.     If  you  have  once  considered  it, 
then  reconsider  it,  and  still  again  consider  it.     Deal 
honestly  and  faithfully   with   yourselves.     Get  rid  of 
your  self-complacencies — your  refuges  of  lies !      Are 
you  remembering  or  forgetting  God  ?     Be  quiet  for  a 
brief  moment  and  hear  your  conscience  speak  ! 

Let  me  plead  with  you,  young  people,  not  to  forget 


ARE  WE  FORGETTING  GOD?         281 

but  to  remember  your  Creator  in  the  days  of  your 
youth.  It  is  just  the  remembrance  of  God  you  most 
need  in  order  to  read  aright  the  whole  significance  of 
life,  and  to  win  and  keep  confidence  in  all  that  gives  to 
life  its  noblest  dignity.  It  is  just  this  remembrance  of 
God  you  most  need  to  command  passion,  to  chasten 
ambition,  to  quicken  your  best  powers,  and  to  guide 
you  in  all  your  ways.  Amid  the  temptation  and  strife 
of  your  days  it  will  be  to  you  illumination  and  inspira- 
tion, strength  and  peace.  And  to  win  this  best  of 
blessings  begin  now  to  bring  your  life  in  all  its  relations 
and  interests  under  the  direct  influence  and  government 
of  the  thought  of  God.  Train  your  minds  to  turn  to 
God.  Practise  His  presence.  Secure  a  few  moments 
every  day  to  acquaint  yourselves  immediately  with  Him. 
Make  Him  your  "  Great  Companion."  Let  this  be 
your  prayer  : 

"  My  God,  permit  me  not  to  be 
A  stranger  to  myself,  and  Thee." 


FAITH    IN   GOD 

"  And  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Have  faith  in  God.  Whosoever 
shall  say  unto  this  mountain.  Be  thou  taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea, 
and  shall  not  doubt  in  his  heart,  but  shall  believe  that  what  he  saith 
Cometh  to  pass,  he  shall  have  it." — Mark  xi.  22,  23. 

Men  in  all  ages  have  been  drawn  to  Jesus  Christ 
because  He  dared  to  believe  in  things  utterly  different 
from  those  which  He  saw  around  Him.  He  loved 
another  order  of  life  than  that  which  His  eyes  beheld 
— the  order  of  the  sons  of  God,  and  He  believed 
that  it  was  at  hand.  It  was  the  burden  of  His  message, 
the  supreme  idea  or  note  of  His  preaching.  He 
confronted  the  order  of  human  life  in  that  ancient 
world  and  said  that  it  must  go  down  ;  and  He  held  up 
the  Divine  order,  which  has  been  wrought  into  the 
structure  of  things  and  towards  which  all  things  have 
been  moving  from  the  beginning,  and  in  the  simplest 
and  most  direct  way  said  that  it  was  possible  to  make 
it  a  reality  even  in  that  land  and  age. 

The  faith  which  Jesus  said  men  must  have  before 
they  could  do  apparently  impossible  things  was  faith 

282 


FAITH  IN  GOD  283 

in  God.  At  the  time  to  which  our  text  belongs  He 
had  been  speaking  to  His  discouraged  disciples  about 
faith  and  what  faith  can  do  in  the  way  of  overcoming 
and  removing  hindrances.  To  add  emphasis  to  what 
He  had  been  saying  He  pointed  to  the  hill  on  which 
the  Temple  stood,  and  assured  them  that  if  only  they 
had  faith  enough  they  could  remove  that  mountain — 
break  down,  that  is,  the  spiritual  tyranny  of  which  it 
was  the  visible  sign  and  symbol  ;  free  their  own  souls 
and  the  souls  of  the  people  from  the  influence  of  the 
system  which  had  made  Jerusalem  a  city  of  bondage 
to  her  children.  Let  them  have  faith  in  God,  let  them 
summon  up  all  their  spiritual  forces,  and  that  mountain 
of  wrong  thoughts  and  ways  which  obstructed  and 
resisted  their  progress  would  disappear  and  their  path 
would  become  straight  and  plain  before  them.  It  was 
a  work  which  must  have  appeared  impossible,  beyond 
all  human  ingenuity  and  power :  and  with  man  un- 
related and  alone  it  was  impossible,  but  not  with  God 
— for  all  things  are  possible  with  God  ;  that  is,  to  man 
with  God,  working  in  the  line  of  the  will  of  God 
and  strengthened  by  His  Spirit. 

In  seeking  to  find  the  lesson  of  our  text  we  must, 
as  I  have  already  indicated,  put  aside  the  fanciful 
meanings  which  have  been  read  into  it  by  persons  who 
believe  in  the  thaumaturgic  use  of  spiritual  power.  We 
must  be  incompetent  readers  of  the  gospels,  without 
wisdom  and  insight,  if  we  fail  to  see  that  Jesus  is  not 


284  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

speaking  from  the  common  levels  of  life  but  from  the 
standpoint  of  high  experiences,  and  is  therefore  not 
prosaic  and  commonplace  in  His  use  of  language.  The 
ways  of  the  God  whom  He  bids  us  trust,  love  and 
obey,  are  not  ways  of  confusion  but  of  order,  and  all 
the  great  and  marvellous  possibilities  of  spiritual  power 
are  in  the  line  of  His  perfect  and  beautiful  order.  We 
are  right,  I  am  persuaded,  in  interpreting  our  text  as  a 
vivid  statement  in  poetic  symbolism  of  the  power  of 
truth  and  good  over  falsehood  and  wrong — over  moral 
obstacles.  Before  a  true  faith  in  God  mountains  of 
obstruction  will  yield,  hills  of  difficulty  be  made  low, 
and  hindrances  both  without  and  within  will  break  and 
scatter  and  the  way  of  the  kingdom  become  a  way  of 
triumph. 

I.  To  interpret  and  appreciate  the  great  saying  I 
have  read  as  my  text,  which  is  repeated  in  various 
forms  in  the  gospels,  we  must  first  understand  what 
Jesus  meant  by  faith.  The  subject,  you  may  think, 
is  an  elementary  one.  What  Jesus  meant  by  faith  is 
surely  so  written  in  our  gospels  that  he  who  runs  may 
read.  It  is  indeed  written  ;  but  how  do  we  read  it .'' 
Are  we  quite  sure,  notwithstanding  our  familiarity  with 
the  symbol,  that  we  have  any  real  appreciation  or  even 
knowledge  of  the  idea  ?  The  word  is  in  current  and 
constant  use  ;  but  does  it  hold  for  us  the  meaning — 
the  truth  and  inspiration — it  held  for  our  Master  when 
He  exhorted  His  disciples  to  have  faith  in  God,  and 


FAITH  IN  GOD  285 

told  them  what  faith  would  do  for  them  and  for  the 
world — if  only  they  had  it  ? 

There  is  hardly  a  simpler  word  in  the  language  than 
faith,  and  we  are  seldom  at  any  loss  in  understanding 
its  meaning  when  it  occurs  in  any  speech  or  writing  on 
common  themes.  But  probably  not  another  of  the  great 
words  of  religion  has  been  so  misused  ;  hardly  any 
convey  a  less  clear  notion,  and  about  no  one  is  there 
such  diversity  of  opinion,  and  consequently  so  much 
uncertainty.  It  is  indeed  a  word  of  many  meanings. 
Although  it  sounds  always  the  same  to  the  ear,  yet  it  has 
passed  and  still  passes  among  men  with  many  a  change 
of  signification.  We  constantly  hear  it  used  for  such 
distinct  things  as  the  faculty  of  spiritual  perception,  and 
the  objects  perceived  by  that  faculty  ;  for  confidence  in 
a  person  or  principle,  and  for  a  creed,  as  when  we  say 
"  This  is  the  Catholic  faith."  To  many  it  is  simply  a 
technical  term — the  symbol  of  a  theological  virtue  ; 
and  by  others  it  is  translated  into  a  demand  for  a  mys- 
tical piety — for  an  inward  experience  and  sentiment, 
which  bring  peace  and  joy  to  the  soul — the  personal 
assurance  of  salvation.  It  has  also  been  often  employed 
as  if  it  were  synonymous  with  credulity,  or  an  easy 
acquiescence,  or  an  act  of  submission  to  authority  ;  and 
again  and  again  has  it  been  used  to  rally  a  crusade 
against  intellect. 

"  Their's  not  to  make  reply, 
Iheir's  not  to  reason  why." 


286  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Even  in  the  New  Testament  we  cannot  be  always 
sure  of  the  meaning  of  faith  without  reference  to  the 
context  or  circumstances.  It  is  not  used  everywhere 
with  the  same  meaning,  but  often  in  a  sense  quite  diverse 
and  needing  to  be  carefully  discriminated.  We  who 
inherit  the  Protestant  tradition  are  much  Inclined  to 
read  the  words  "  Have  faith  in  God  "  in  the  light  of 
St.  Paul's  teaching.  But  in  the  use  of  Jesus  faith  is  a 
much  simpler  and  more  practical  quality. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  say  that  when  the  Saviour 
of  men  bids  us  "  have  faith  in  God "  He  is  not 
summoning  us  to  believe  in  definite  theological  pro- 
positions or  opinions  concerning  God.  His  religion,  it 
is  true,  has  to  do  with  the  mind  as  well  as  the  heart, 
and  it  does  not  ask  for  any  abrupt  acceptance  or  un- 
reasoning emotion.  What  It  opposes  to  faith  Is  not 
reason,  but  sight.  We  are  not  to  believe  that  wrong  is 
right,  or  other  than  unprofitable  and  ruinous,  even 
when  the  whole  evidence  of  our  senses  seems  to  tell 
us  that  it  is  profitable  and  successful.  While  the  faith 
which  Jesus  bids  us  "  have  "  can  justify  itself  to  the 
enlightened  and  sound  mind,  and  is  far  removed  from 
credulity,  superstition  and  fanaticism,  it  is  not  a  mere 
matter  of  the  intellect — a  mere  mental  assent  to  ideas 
concerning  God  with  which  the  affections  and  will 
have  nothing  to  do  and  which  produces  no  change  of 
life  and  conduct.  It  is  essentially  a  moral  and  practical 
quality. 


FAITH  IN  GOD  287 

The  man  who  loves  the  Psalms  and  has  drunk  in 
their  spirit  will  be  tempted  to  read  the  exhortation 
"  Have  faith  in  God  "  as  a  call  to  simple  trust — that 
trust  which  brings  confidence  even  when  we  stand  in 
fear  of  life,  and  mental  peace  when  we  are  facing  what 
we  cannot  understand.  Distrust,  we  are  persuaded, 
is  not  the  attitude  in  which  change,  loss  and  trouble, 
and  the  issues  of  life  and  death,  can  be  safely  met. 
We  must  feel  assured  that  the  Divine  care  is  behind 
all  the  incidents  and  events  of  our  passing  days,  and 
beneath  all  the  movements  of  life  :  we  must  have 
such  confidence  in  God  as  to  put  aside  while  doing 
our  duty  all  fear  of  consequences,  and  all  anxiety  about 
our  personal  safety.  This  is  always  the  right  thing 
to  do  ;  but  it  is  not  the  right  interpretation  of  our 
text.  In  many  of  His  recorded  sayings,  Jesus,  it  is 
true,  exalts  trust  as  a  cardinal  virtue  and  bids  us  exer- 
cise it.  By  His  revelation  of  the  Eternal  Goodness  and 
Fatherhood  He  would  sweep  away  all  our  unbelieving 
cares  and  forebodings,  and  make  us  strong  to  endure 
what  we  cannot  help,  and  to  conquer  all  fear  of  the 
unseen  morrow.  But  trust  is  a  passive  quality  to  be 
exercised  when  everything  has  been  done  ;  it  is  the 
falling  back  in  quiet  submission  and  confidence  on  the 
good  will  of  God.  Faith,  in  distinction  from  trust,  is 
an  active  quality.  It  is  the  response  of  man  to  God  : 
not  a  passive,  but  an  active  response  ;  not  a  partial,  but 
a  complete  response  ;  the  response  of  the  whole  being 


288  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

— mind,  heart,  and  will — to  God  ;  an  entirely  practical 
acceptance  of  and  identification  with  ideal  truth  and 
good  as  the  Divine  law  and  order  of  life. 

Faith  in  the  thought  and  teaching  of  Jesus  is 
essentially  an  act  of  the  will — a  moral  quality  whose 
opposite  is  inability  to  do  and  to  dare,  disobedience  due 
to  weakness  or  wilfulness — disloyalty.  It  is  loyalty  to 
the  will  of  God — loyalty  to  the  best  we  see  and  know 
— coupled  with  the  conviction  that  in  spite  of  all 
apparent  difficulty,  delay,  and  defeat,  God's  best,  which 
includes  our  human  best,  is  advancing  to  power  and 
glory.  Mere  belief  in  God,  in  His  might  and  good- 
ness, is  not  faith  according  to  our  Master's  idea  of  faith. 
He  never  gave  the  name  of  faith  to  a  belief  on  which 
there  was  no  courage  to  adventure.  When  he  exhorted 
His  disciples  to  have  faith  in  God  He  was  not  asking 
them  merely  to  believe  on  God,  but  to  act  on  their  belief. 
There  can  be  no  reality  in  a  belief  that  is  not  acted 
upon,  not  lived  by.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  assent 
and  approve  ;  the  vital  thing  is  the  will  to  respond. 
Without  this  direct  moral  influence  on  the  life  we  may 
have  a  creed — certain  statements  about  God  which  we 
have  accepted — but  hardly  anything  which  Jesus  would 
have  called  faith.  Faith  is  a  union  of  intellect  and  will  ; 
it  is  belief  put  into  the  will  and  passing  into  purpose 
and  action  ;  it  is  actual  movement  in  the  line  of  the 
belief,  as  if  it  were  the  only  thing  that  could  be  done, 
as  if  existence  and  the  whole  course  of  things  must  in 


FAITH  IN  GOD  289 

time  agree  with  it  and  justify  it.  It  is  at  once  the  true 
vision  or  conviction  of  the  Divine  will  and  the  action 
of  man's  will  towards  fulfilling  it — the  giving  up  of 
one's  self  to  do  the  will  of  God — the  obedience  of 
the  life. 

In  reading  the  New  Testament  you  must  have 
observed  how  often  faith  and  obedience  are  spoken  of 
as  one  and  the  same  thing.  The  connection  between 
them  is  so  immediate  and  vital  that  what  is  attributed 
to  faith  is  also  attributed  to  obedience.  Obedience  is 
faith  exhibited  in  its  necessary  issue  and  result,  lived 
out,  acted  out,  and  so  made  visible  to  the  world. 
Faith  without  works  is  dead,  is  not  real  faith  at  all, 
because  real  and  living  faith  must  issue  in  works  cor- 
responding to  the  moral  ideal  involved  in  it.  When 
the  spirit  within  you  hears  God  saying,  "  Speak  the 
truth,"  "  Be  just,"  "  Be  merciful  and  forgiving,"  and 
you  accept  the  inward  whisper  as  a  Divine  command 
and  are  ready  to  obey  it  and  to  suffer  anything  rather 
than  go  counter  to  it — that  is  faith  in  God.  You 
may  always  judge  the  quality  of  your  belief  by  your 
obedience,  and  measure  faith  by  your  faithfulness. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  we  have  faith  in  God. 
The  first  clause  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  "  I  believe  in 
God  " — the  greatest  and  most  majestic  affirmation  that 
can  come  from  human  lips — we  often  repeat,  and  glibly. 
Few  really  doubt  the  existence  and  power,  the  righteous- 
ness and  goodness,  of  God.     Few  really  doubt    that 

19 


290  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

this  world  is  God's  world,  and  that  the  true  laws  of  life, 
the  laws  we  ought  to  obey,  are  God's  laws.  But  real 
faith  in  God  is  much  less  common  than  many  suppose. 
The  moral  daring,  the  definite  and  unreserved  com- 
mittal of  one's  self  to  live  and  act  as  a  servant  and  son 
of  God,  which  Jesus  called  faith — that  is  still  rare  in 
the  world.  On  the  Mount  of  Vision  we  behold  the 
Divine  order  of  human  Hfe,  but  how  few  of  us  determine 
and  carry  out  the  determination  that  our  daily  living 
and  doing  must  follow  that  order  and  none  other  ! 

And  yet  our  Christian  religion  began  with  this  faith. 

It  began,  not  with  the  proclamation  of   new  ideas  or 

with  a  new  scheme  of  salvation,  or  with  the  laying  down 

of  a  fixed  system  of  doctrine  or  ritual  which  must  be 

accepted,    but    with    the    consecration    of    One    who 

unreservedly  gave  Himself  to  be  and  to  do  what  God 

required,  with  the  courage  of  One  who  obeyed  perfectly 

His  heavenly  vision — One  so  penetrated  and  possessed 

by  faith  in  God,!and  with  such  an  abounding  confidence 

in  the  Divine  order  of  life,  that  obstacles  counted  for 

nothing,  or  operated  but  as  a  means  of  calling  out  a 

greater  devotion.     It  was  His  own  working  theory  of 

life  which  Jesus   called   faith    in    God.     He   believed 

Himself  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  sent  here  to  do  His 

Father's  will  and  work,  and  from  the  beginning  of  His 

life  we  see  Him  in  all  things  behaving  as  the  Son  of 

God  ;  receiving  His  directions   from    God   alone    and 

shaping  His  days  by  them  ;  refusing  to  be  the  political 


FAITH  IN  GOD  291 

agitator  that  His  friends  wished  and  expected  Him  to 
be  ;  never  doing  anything  lower  than  His  ideal  required  ; 
confused  by  no  double  standard,  resorting  to  no  com- 
promises, relying  on  no  other  forces  than  the  forces  of 
truth  and  love  ;  not  even  in  the  most  trying  emergencies 
using  any  other  means  of  producing  impression  and 
conviction  :  all  through  His  days  moved,  mastered, 
guided,  upheld  by  this  one  motive  and  purpose — "  I 
must  obey  My  Father's  will  ;  speak  His  words,  not  My 
own  ;  do  His  works,  not  My  own  ;  and  in  all  things 
please  Him."  And  so  at  the  last  we  see  Him  hanging 
on  the  Cross,  and  hanging  there  because  He  had  been 
obedient  to  the  end.  "  1  have  overcome  the  world,"  He 
said,  when  to  all  appearance  the  world  had  overcome 
Him.  But  His  great  word  is  true.  The  Cross  was 
victory.  It  was  His  faithfulness  that  brought  Him 
there.  It  was  failure,  but  triumphant  failure.  He  had 
not  failed.  Well  might  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  in  his  roll  of  known  and  nameless  heroes  and 
saints  put  Jesus  forward  as  our  example  and  leader  in 
faith  as  in  every  other  virtue — the  Great  Chief  of 
faithful  souls  ! 

It  was  the  whole-hearted,  unreserved,  persistent, 
unfailing  committal  of  themselves  to  the  will  of  God 
which  Jesus  asked  from  the  men  around  Him  when 
He  asked  for  faith  in  God.  They  were,  though  sen- 
timentally religious,  living  a  poor,  broken,  compromis- 
ing life.     They  hoped  for  the  Divine  kingdom  of  their 


292  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

prophets'  visions  and  prayers,  but  their  eyes  were  also 
fixed  on  the  glittering  seductions  of  worldly  and  selfish 
ambition.  They  were  eager  both  for  the  earthly  and 
the  heavenly  things,  but  they  had  neither  as  ruling 
motive  or  purpose.  They  were  divided  against  them- 
selves, irresolute  and  unstable.  Their  confidence  in 
the  higher  things  was  constantly  yielding  to  fears, 
jealousies,  and  rivalries  inspired  by  their  love  of  the 
lower  things.  They  tried  to  pursue  a  middle  course, 
to  serve  two  masters,  to  divide  their  allegiance  between 
God  and  a  world  at  war  with  the  will  of  God.  The 
call  of  Jesus  was  :  "  Have  faith  in  God  !  Free  your- 
selves from  this  dualism  of  the  moral  life  !  Break  the 
tyranny  of  this  double-mindedness  !  Do  not  conduct 
half  of  your  life  on  one  principle  and  the  other  half  on 
a  diflferent  principle  !  Let  one  great  principle,  one 
great  affection,  one  great  purpose,  have  full  control  of 
your  life  from  centre  to  circumference  in  all  its  relations 
and  parts  !  Deliver  yourselves  to  follow  the  will  of 
God  !  Let  the  will  of  God  be  your  one  all-compre- 
hending allegiance  !  "  It  was  this  utter  singleness  of 
motive  and  aim,  this  sole  devotion  and  service,  this 
absolute  surrender  to  the  absolutely  true  and  right, 
which  Jesus  called  faith  in  God  and  to  which  He 
committed  Himself  and  His  cause. 

The  special  characteristic  of  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels 
may  be  said  to  consist  in  this  dealing  with  all  moral 
matters  and  all  questions  of  duty  from  the  standpoint 


FAITH  IN  GOD  293 

of  the  ideal.  He  simply  would  not  take  any  account 
of  prevailing  conditions  and  of  the  things  which  are 
regarded  to  be  politic  and  expedient.  The  will  of  God 
— that  is,  the  thing  which  is  perfectly  true  and  just  and 
right — must  be  followed  without  compromise,  and  with- 
out looking  to  side  interests  and  temporal  results.  He, 
as  we  have  seen,  completely  accepted  the  will  of  God  as 
the  law  of  His  own  life  ;  He  knew  no  other  law  and  no 
other  order  than  that  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  was  to 
the  daily  practice  of  absolute  fidelity  to  the  Divine  will 
and  order  He  summoned  men.  This  alone  being  of 
consequence,  the  one  thing  for  which  all  other  things 
existed.  He  accounted  nothing  that  could  befall  a  man 
in  the  way  of  outward  loss  and  suffering  and  failure  as 
worthy  of  serious  consideration.  The  ordinary  objects 
of  human  desire — food,  raiment,  house  and  provisioning 
for  the  morrow — must  have  a  very  subordinate  place 
in  the  regard  of  all  who  would  be  His  disciples.  They 
must  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  seek  first  to  bring 
their  entire  being  and  life  into  right  accord  with  God 
and  His  will.  And  if  they  gave  themselves  with  all 
their  mind  and  strength  to  following  the  Divine  order 
of  life,  they  might  be  confident  that  what  they  really 
needed  of  the  lower  things  would  somehow  come  all 
right.  They  must  take  for  granted  the  care  of  God 
while  they  seek  to  do  His  will.  To  act  in  anything  as 
if  they  thought  it  not  quite  wise  and  safe  to  be  per- 
fectly honest  and  true,  perfectly  self-denying  and  kind, 


294  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

would  be  to  doubt  or  deny  God,  His  presence  and  His 
providence  in  human  life.  Let  the  idea  of  God  as 
Infinite  Wisdom,  Goodness  and  Fatherhood  control 
their  feeling  and  thought,  and  it  would  deliver  them 
from  putting  their  trust  in  worldly  policies  and  ex- 
pedients and  the  shifting  subterfuges  of  fear  and 
cowardice. 

Have  faith  in  God  !  Alas  !  how  few  of  us  have  any 
real  faith  in  God  !  Our  lives  would  be  utterly  different 
in  every  way  if  we  had.  Our  lives  are  unquiet, 
troubled,  distracted,  confused,  just  for  want  of  this  faith 
— this  entire  committal  of  ourselves  to  what  we  plainly 
see  to  be  the  will  of  God.  We  behave  and  act  as  if 
the  world  were  not  God's  world  but  a  divided  empire, 
as  if  there  were  more  gods  than  one  to  be  worshipped 
and  served.  It  may  seem  a  strange  thing  to  say  to  a 
congregation  of  Christian  people  that  our  lives  are 
weak  and  false  and  broken,  because  we  are  worshipping 
and  serving  more  gods  than  one.  The  thought  of 
other  gods  ruling  over  us,  holding  down  our  aspira- 
tions, dictating  our  speech,  directing  and  controlling 
our  behaviour,  may  be  hateful  to  us  when  quietly 
considered  in  the  House  of  Prayer,  but  in  our 
daily  lives  the  thought  is  a  fact.  Can  you  honestly 
say,  my  hearers,  that  you  know  nothing  about  the 
serving  of  other  gods  ?  What  is  the  temptation  to  say 
what  others  say,  and  to  do  what  others  do  }  What  is 
it  to  put  aside  the  higher  things  for  the  sake  of  the 


FAITH  IN  GOD  295 

lower   things  ?      What    is    it    to    be    silent  when    you 
ought  to    speak,  or   to  speak  with  a  double  tongue  ? 
What  is  it  to  sacrifice  some  lofty  ideal  of  duty  for  the 
sake  of  a  mean    success,  or    for   comfort    and   peace  ? 
What  is  it  to  be  less  strictly  true  to  principle  in  order 
to  win  and  keep  a  place  in  church,  or  state,  or  society, 
or   to    realise    some  poor    dream  of   wider  influence  ? 
What  is  it  to  follow  questionable  methods  and  practices, 
in    political    relations,   business    relations,    ecclesiastical 
relations  ?     What    is    the    meaning    of    our    want    of 
confidence  in  what  is  right  in  many  of    our   dealings 
with  our  fellows,  and  of    our  confidence  in  our   own 
smartness,  shrewdness,  sharpness,  and  in  the  prescrip- 
tions of  a  worldly  society  and  in  the  maxims  of  an  evil 
world  ?      What   is  it  when  a  great  principle  or  great 
cause  is  at  stake  and  everything  should  be  risked  in 
its  behalf,  to  hesitate,  to  think  of  compromise,  to  turn 
about  for  some  expedient  by  which  we  may  escape  from 
where  duty  calls  and  danger  ?     Is  not  that  living  and 
acting  as  if  the  world  were  not  God's  world  through- 
out,  but  a  divided  empire  ?     Is  not  that  bowing  the 
knee  to  other  principles,  other  laws,  other  influences, 
other    wills,   and    forgetting    and    denying    the    one 
principle,  the  one  law,  the  one  will,  the  one  spirit,  the 
one    God  ?     We   do   not  live  honest,  straightforward, 
and  consistent  lives,  because  we  have  more  gods  than 
one,  because  we  do  not  realise  that  there  is  no  other 
god  but  the  one  living  and  true  God  ;  that  His  will,  and 


296  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

not  our  own  comfort,  gratification,  vanity,  is  the  one 
law,  the  one  and  only  thing  we  are  to  seek  to  do  every- 
where, and  in  and  through  everything,  leaving  the 
other  things  to  arrange  themselves  around  this  central 
and  supreme  thing  in  the  way  and  measure  it  pleases 
Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do  in  all  the  relations 
of  life. 

Have  faith  in  God  !  All  crooked  dealing  is  a  denial 
of  God.  All  the  shrewd  devices,  all  the  politic  schemes, 
all  the  means  which  weakness  and  worldliness  take  in 
order  to  evade  loss  and  danger  and  to  win  desirable  and 
even  good  ends,  are  a  denial  of  God.  We  may  not 
behave  as  if  fraud  could  be  profitable  and  falsehood 
could  do  better  work  than  truth,  not  if  we  are  seeking 
to  serve  Him  to  whom  lies  are  an  abomination  and 
who  desireth  truth  in  the  inward  parts.  We  may 
not  do  evil  that  good  may  come,  not  if  this  is  God's 
world  and  we  are  His  children.  We  may  not  hesitate 
to  tell  the  truth  and  to  act  uprightly  because  the 
perfectly  sincere  thing  seems  inexpedient  against  our 
convenience,  comfort,  popularity  and  worldly  success, 
or  against  the  interest  of  our  party  or  sect ;  not  if  we 
have  faith  in  God  and  hold  truth,  righteousness  and 
love  to  be  the  realities  for  which  all  things  else  exist. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  succeed,  win  distinc- 
tion, power,  money,  and  be  comfortable  and  happy  ;  it 
is  not  even  necessary,  as  Luther  used  to  say,  that  we 
should  live  ;  but  it  is  necessary  that  truth  and  righteous- 


FAITH  IN  GOD  297 

ness  should  be  maintained  and  established  in  the  world. 
We  can  be  dispensed  with,  but  not  the  principles  which 
we  are  often  tempted  to  barter  for  some  selfish  end. 

Let  me  point  out  here  that  there  is  much  real  faith 
in  God  which  does  not  know  itself  to  be  faith  in  God. 
It  is  so  substantially  and  really,  but  not  consciously. 
In  one  of  his  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects^  Froude 
divided  men  into  two  great  classes.  On  the  one  side 
there  are  the  men  who  have  no  commanding  convic- 
tions concerning  duty  and  who  guide  their  lives  by 
what  is  pleasant  or  profitable.  On  the  other  side 
there  are  the  men  of  faith — men  who  believe  strongly 
in  truth,  justice  and  goodness,  and  cleave  to  them 
passionately.  At  all  hazards,  and  in  spite  of  all  im- 
mediate consequences  to  themselves,  they  prefer  and 
follow  the  right  without  hesitation  when  once  it  is 
discerned.  They  may  see  no  gain  coming  from  it  to 
themselves,  but  still  they  resolve,  "  Let  us  do  that  and 
nothing  else  ;  life  will  have  no  meaning  or  value  for  us 
if  we  are  to  use  it  only  to  serve  private  ends."  Men 
of  faith  are,  as  Froude  says,  men  who  do  not  care 
to  succeed  anywhere  or  in  anything  if  they  cannot 
succeed  nobly  ;  men  who  have  but  one  fear — the  fear 
of  doing  the  wrong  thing  and  taking  the  wrong  side. 

Why  is  it  that  these  men  are  described  as  men  of 
faith  .?  They  are  not  believers,  perhaps,  in  the  con- 
ventional church  sense  ;  they  may  not  be  able  to 
subscribe  to  any  of  the  creeds  of   Christendom    even 


298  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

for  substance  of  doctrine  ;  and  yet  men  whose  lives  are 
moved  and  led  by  simple  faith  in  truth,  justice  and 
goodness,  and  who  believe  that  in  the  long  run  the  laws 
of  the  world  pay  respect  to  and  establish  what  is  true 
and  just  and  good  and  only  that,  cannot  surely  be 
classed  with  unbelievers.  They  are  not  so  in  reality. 
The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  would 
have  given  them  a  place  in  his  calendar  of  faithful  men. 
Jesus  beholding  them  would  have  loved  them  and  said 
of  them,  "  Ye  are  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God  "  ; 
and  of  some  of  them,  "  I  have  not  found  such  great 
faith  ;  no,  not  in  Israel."  To-day  as  yesterday,  men 
who  have  the  overmastering  persuasion  that  all  right 
things  can  be  done  and  must  be  done,  ought  to  be 
reckoned  among  the  faithful  sons  of  God.  It  is  not 
a  question  of  words  but  of  things,  not  of  names  but  of 
realities.  Metaphysical  and  other  mists  may  obscure 
the  vision  of  a  man  whose  deepest  sympathies  are  all  in 
most  open  and  practical  ways  on  the  side  of  truth  and 
justice  and  goodness  in  the  world.  Truth  and  justice 
and  goodness  are  of  the  essence  of  things — that  is,  of  the 
nature  of  God.  Our  ideals  of  duty  are  not  phantoms 
of  our  brain  but  the  shadows  and  outlines  of  the  Infinite 
Perfection  in  whose  image  we  are  made.  "  To  do 
justice  and  judgment,"  said  Jeremiah,  speaking  in  the 
name  of  God,  "  is  not  this  to  know  me  ?  saith  the 
Lord."  To  have  faith  in  truth,  in  justice,  in  good- 
ness, is  to  have  faith  in  God  ;    and  we  have  just  so 


FAITH  IN  GOD  299 

much  faith  in  God  as  we  have  faith  in  truth,  justice 
and  goodness. 

This  unconscious  faith  in  God  is,  of  course,  not 
enough,  but  it  maybe  a  most  real  and  honest  beginning 
out  of  which  the  highest  faith  can  in  time  proceed. 
All  straight  and  upward  roads  must  lead  at  last  to  God's 
holy  hill  and  the  tabernacle  of  His  presence.  We  can- 
not have  too  much  faith  in  the  moral  ideal,  in  truth 
and  justice,  goodness  and  love,  as  the  real  and  eternal 
laws  of  the  world  and  life  ;  but  we  need  also,  for  inspira- 
tion and  strength,  faith  in  the  Living  God  who  is  the 
Source,  Centre  and  Unity  of  all  our  human  ideals,  the 
Fountain  of  all  goodness,  who  comprehends  in  Himself 
all  forms  of  good,  as  the  ocean  includes  all  its  waves. 
It  is  in  the  union  of  these  two  elements — the  committal 
of  ourselves  to  the  moral  ideal,  and  the  recognition  of 
God  as  the  source  of  it — the  One  who  is  manifested  in 
it  and  through  it — we  have  the  faith  in  God  to  which 
Christ  calls  us  and  the  unity  with  God  to  which  He 
seeks  to  restore  us. 

We  must  pray  with  the  disciples,  "  Increase  our  faith." 
Moral  power  is  rooted  in  the  Christian  confidence  that 
this  world  is  God's  world,  its  laws  God's  laws,  its  men 
and  women  God's  children.  What  increases  that  faith 
makes  most  directly  for  moral  progress  and  true 
social  wellbeing.  But  the  greatest  foe  of  religion  to- 
day is  not  theoretical  but  practical  unbelief  ;  not 
atheism,  which  scarcely  exists,  but  theism  empty  of  its 


300  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

ethical  significance  and  power.  What  is  mourned  as 
the  decay  of  idealism  is  in  reality  the  loss  of  faith  in 
God.  Everywhere  we  see  the  form  of  godliness  without 
the  spirit  and  power  thereof — a  holding,  even  in  many 
cases  an  ostentatious  holding,  of  the  theistic  and 
Christian  beliefs,  without  apparently  any  experience 
of  the  practical  energy  which  they  impart.  There  are 
many  persons  everywhere  who  do  not  hesitate  to  deny 
the  Christian  name  to  serious  and  devout  men  who 
question  the  dogmas  which  have  grown  up  about  the 
person  and  work  of  Jesus  ;  but  their  own  easy  rejection 
of  the  ethical  teaching  of  Jesus  as  incapable  of  being 
practised  in  modern  society,  and  their  own  failure 
to  take  into  the  world  a  higher  standard  than  the 
world  can  bear,  give  them  little  trouble.  There  are 
thousands  in  this  city  and  members  of  all  the  churches 
who  would  not  like  to  be  even  suspected  of  want  of  faith 
in  God,  but  what  they  call  their  faith  is  not  able  to 
move  a  stone,  much  less  a  mountain  ;  it  has  no  more 
moral  influence  on  their  common  lives  than  their  belief 
in  the  moons  of  Jupiter  or  the  chemical  composition  of 
the  stars.  They  think  because  they  can  repeat  the 
words,  "  I  believe  in  God,"  that  they  have  got  the  reality 
— though  the  whole  six  days  of  the  week  give  the  lie 
to  their  Sunday  confession  of  faith. 

Have  faith  in  God  !  Were  Jesus  Christ  among  us 
to-day.  He  would  address  many  of  us  in  view  of  our 
inconsistent,  divided,  broken,  morally  ineffective  lives, 


FAITH  IN  GOD  301 

— "  How  is  it  that  ye  have  no  faith  "  ? — "  O  ye  of  little 
faith  !  "  The  same  exclamations  of  surprise  are  just 
as  applicable  now  and  here  as  they  were  then  and 
there.  The  same  causes  are  in  operation  producing  the 
same  effects.  Want  of  confidence  in  what  is  best,  and 
of  the  determination  to  cleave  to  it,  and  carry  it  through 
at  whatever  cost,  is  a  common  infirmity.  Moral 
cowardice  is  a  most  prevalent  vice  in  all  classes  and  com- 
munities of  men.  He  who  knew  by  a  divine  insight 
what  was  in  man,  would  trace  the  state  of  social,  political, 
commercial  and  ecclesiastical  morality,  the  weakness  of 
the  Church,  its  declining  moral  influence,  its  unideal 
methods  and  devices,  its  secular  and  sensational  agencies, 
and  the  slow  progress  of  true  religion  in  our  land,  to  the 
want  of  courage  which  springs  from  want  of  faith  in  God. 
There  is  nothing  which  the  churches  of  our  country 
need  more  at  this  present  hour  than  faith  in  God.  It 
is  not  by  conforming  to  the  world  the  world  is  best 
helped.  It  is  not  by  time-serving  the  time  is  truly 
served.  Long  enough  have  we  resorted  to  compromises ; 
long  enough  have  the  arts  of  management  possessed  us  ; 
long  enough  have  we  tried  to  serve  God  and  mammon  ; 
long  enough  have  we  sought  to  win  men  by  following 
worldly  devices,  as  if  they  had  no  power  to  recognise 
and  respond  to  what  is  truly  spiritual.  Let  us  trust  the 
ideals  and  methods  of  our  religion,  and  stoop  to  no 
artifices,  even  to  save  a  thousand  souls.  The  God  of 
truth  and  holiness  will  not  be  served  by  what  is  not 


302  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

utterly  true  and  clean  and  good.  More  faith  in  God, 
and  less  in  policy  and  expedient,  would  show  a  higher 
wisdom  and  nobler  courage,  and  in  the  end  finer  and 
more  abiding  results.  And  Jesus  said,  "  Have  faith  in 
God.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  if  ye  have  faith  like  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  would  say  to  this  mountain, 
Be  thou  taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea,  and  it  would 
come  to  pass — the  impossible  would  happen,  the  evil 
that  seems  fixed  and  immovable  would  disappear,  and 
the  world  that  is  now  against  you  would  be  overcome." 
2.  In  this  great  saying  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  sublime 
courage  which  possessed  the  soul  of  Jesus,  the  courage 
of  one  who  meant  to  make  war  against  the  evil  of  a 
nation  and  a  world  ;  who  could  view  defeat  as  victory 
and  death  as  a  positive  step  in  His  progressive  work  ; 
who  could  see  triumph  springing  out  of  failure  and  the 
Cross  to  be  a  means  of  spiritual  uprising  and  influence. 
Give  it  a  moral  interpretation,  and  who  will  say  that 
this  bold  utterance  of  the  Master  of  all  moral  attainment 
is  hyperbole  ?  It  may  not^be  true  to  describe  a  particular 
thing  as  wrong  or  as  right  ;  but  there  is  brave  truth 
in  saying  that  whatever  is  wrong  can  be  overthrown, 
and  whatever  is  right  can  be  brought  to  pass.  Faith 
in  God  that  is  not  allied  to  courage  and  daring  is  not 
faith  according  to  Christ.  The  faith  which  removes 
mountains  is  always  allied  with  the  finest  elements  of 
true  manhood.  It  is  fearless,  but  it  is  not  the  fearless- 
ness of  stupidity  or  fanaticism  or  presumption,  but  of 


FAITH  IN  GOD  303 

an  enlightened  and  pure  moral  enthusiasm  which  practi- 
cally brings  all  that  is  within  a  man  to  one  fixed  purpose 
and  course  of  action.  It  is  not  afraid  of  difficulty.  It 
is  found  where  the  service  is  hardest  and  the  battle  is 
hottest.  It  never  knows  when  it  is  beaten.  It  falls  to 
rise.  It  loves  sympathy,  but  it  can  stand  and  fight 
alone  rather  than  yield  one  inch  to  falsehood  and 
wrong. 

"  If  ye  had  faith  ye  would  remove  mountains." 
Virgil  said  of  the  winning  crew  in  his  famous  boat-race, 
"  They  can,  because  they  believe  they  can  ! "  His 
words  are  almost  identical  with  words  we  find  in  the 
text — "  Whosoever  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Be 
thou  taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea,  and  shall  not  doubt 
in  his  heart,  but  shall  believe  that  what  he  saith  cometh 
to  pass,  he  shall  have  it."  The  trouble  with  many  of 
us  is  that  we  do  not  fully  believe  that  we  can  do  what 
we  are  bidden  do  by  the  All-wise  Master  of  our  life. 
We  are  more  or  less  ignorant  of  our  own  power — of 
the  hidden  spiritual  forces  of  our  own  nature.  We 
are  afraid  of  great  ventures  because  we  under-estimate 
ourselves.  We  need  more  of  that  self-confidence 
which  in  its  last  analysis  is  confidence  in  God — the 
God  who  worketh  in  us  to  will  and  to  do.  In  the 
disciples  of  Christ  we  see  what  faith  in  God  could  do 
for  average  men,  such  men  as  we  find  in  the  streets, 
dull  in  mind,  timid  in  spirit,  weak  in  will.  The  whole- 
hearted committal  of  themselves  to  the  work  of  God 


304  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

made  them  conscious  of  undreamt-of  power,  and  made 
them  capable  of  achieving  what  they  never  thought 
possible  ;  changed  them  from  ordinary  and  common- 
place men  into  heroes  and  martyrs  whom  we  remember 
for  ever.  Forgetting  themselves,  and  determined  to 
bring  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  they  went  forward,  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  their  faith  operated  in  the  very  way 
their  Master  said  ;  it  enabled  them  to  surmount  formid- 
able difficulties,  to  break  down  mountainous  obstacles, 
to  subdue  seeming  impossibilities,  to  overcome  a  hostile 
world.  And  from  those  days  to  these  all  the  greatest 
things  that  have  been  done  for  God  and  man  have 
been  done  by  men  full  of  the  energy  of  faith.  The 
men  of  faith  have  achieved  what  is  impossible  to  other 
men.  For  with  God,  in  union  with  Him,  all  things 
are  possible  in  the  way  of  obedience  and  service.  It 
is  to  this  power  of  faith  which  connects  our  life 
with  the  spiritual  resources  of  the  universe,  God  has 
entrusted  the  redemption  and  progress  of  the  world — 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth. 

"  If  ye  had  faith  ye  would  remove  mountains."  Let 
us  beware  of  defining  the  word  "  possible  "  too  narrowly. 
If  men  would  only  do  in  the  moral  what  they  do  in  the 
material  sphere,  trust  moral  laws  and  forces  as  they 
trust  physical  laws  and  forces,  they  would  see  how 
perfectly  true  to  fact  is  the  promise  of  our  text.  In 
the  material  sphere  of  his  life  nothing  seems  impos- 
sible   to    man  ;    he    knows    so    much    about    material 


FAITH  IN  GOD  305 

laws  that  he  has  a  certain  quiet,  unshakable  confidence 
that  none  of  his  work  will  be  in  vain.  There  is 
nothing  so  daring  that  he  does  not  undertake,  and 
nothing  so  vast  that  he  does  not  achieve.  He  crosses 
continents  as  though  they  were  counties,  and  oceans  as 
though  they  were  rivers  ;  he  levels  mountains,  anni- 
hilates space,  and  brings  the  ends  of  the  earth  together 
for  mutual  fellowship  and  service.  He  seeks  to  under- 
stand and  obey  the  laws  of  Nature  ;  he  arranges  his 
machinery  and  sets  the  right  instrumentalities  in  play  ; 
and  lo  !  the  powers  of  heaven  come  down  to  serve  him, 
the  forces  of  heat,  electricity,  gravitation,  press  forward 
to  do  his  bidding,  and  everything  seems  possible. 

It  is  not  only  over  physical  forces — forces  of  wind 
and  wave,  of  earth  and  sky — man  has  power  and 
dominion.  In  these  moral  lives  which  we  are  living, 
and  in  these  Christian  works  which  we  are  seeking:  to 
do,  we  can  join  ourselves  to  the  spiritual  forces  of  the 
universe.  The  elemental  powers  of  truth  and  right 
and  love  wait  to  serve  us,  and  they  have  never  yet  been 
known  to  fail.  Here  also  all  things  are  possible  to 
him  that  hath  faith.  We  may  go  forward  with  as  sure 
a  confidence  in  moral  effort  as  we  have  in  physical 
effort.  There  is  in  moral  work  a  certainty  of  moral 
results  following  from  adequate  moral  causes  parallel 
to  that  in  mechanical  work.  There  is  but  one  way  of 
success  in  things  material  and  moral  alike — it  is  the 
way  of  obedience.     All  things  are  possible  to  men  living 

20 


3o6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

and  working  with  all  their  strength  in  the  line  of  Divine 
laws  and  purposes.  Put  yourselves,  my  hearers,  on 
God's  side,  and  your  life  becomes  at  once  part  of  the 
eternal  life  of  God  ;  identify  yourselves  with  the  Divine 
order  of  the  world,  and  it  bears  you  up  and  carries  you 
on.  Speak  the  true  word,  and  the  God  of  truth,  you  may 
be  sure,  will  make  it  in  some  real  way  a  word  of  power. 
Put  your  belief  in  what  is  highest  and  best  with  all  your 
might  into  deeds,  and  you  will  find  the  Eternal  Right 
fighting  your  battles  against  wrong,  find  that  no  wrong 
thing  is  success  and  no  right  thing  is  failure,  that 
always  the  right  comes  out  clear  and  victorious  at  the 
end.  We  are  part  of  a  universe  which  is  moving  to 
bring  all  best  things  to  pass  ;  we  are  living  in  a  world 
where  all  things  in  the  way  of  moral  and  spiritual 
success  are  possible  to  the  whole-hearted,  single-minded, 
brave  and  fearless  children  of  God. 

It  was  this  confidence  in  the  Divine  order  of  life 
which  Jesus  sought  to  inspire  in  His  disciples.  It  was 
this  confidence  to  which  He  gave  the  name  of  faith — 
the  confidence  that  truth  and  righteousness,  goodness 
and  love,  are  of  God  and  therefore  must  be  obeyed, 
lived  for,  laboured  for,  suffered  for,  died  for,  and  that, 
however  to  all  appearances  they  may  be  thwarted  and 
defeated  for  a  time,  they  must  ultimately  prevail  and 
be  established  upon  the  earth.  Being  of  the  nature 
and  will  of  God,  the  course  of  things  must  finally  agree 
with  them,     Living  for  them,  working  for  them,  we 


FAITH  IN  GOD  307 

have  directly  on  our  side  the  Power  that  is  making, 
redeeming  and  guiding  the  world.  We  ourselves  may 
fall  and  be  defeated,  but  the  true  and  good  things  for 
which  we  fight  must  be  victorious.  Our  personal 
defeat  and  failure  may  be  necessary  to  and  be  a  part  of 
the  final  victory.  But  whatever  the  apparent  waste  of 
effort,  no  good  is  lost.  The  order  and  cause  to  which 
our  life  and  work  belong  cannot  fail,  but  must  go  on 
from  strength  to  strength  and  from  glory  to  glory. 

It  is  told  of  a  famous  musician  that  he  was  once 
spending  a  few  days  with  a  friend  in  England,  who  took 
him  to  a  church  on  Sunday  where  he  listened  to  a  little 
sermon  on  a  little  theme.  The  next  Sunday  the  friend 
invited  the  musician  to  go  again  to  church.  "  I  will," 
said  Rubinstein,  "  but  on  one  condition  :  you  must 
take  me  to  hear  a  man  who  will  tempt  me  to  do  the 
impossible."  It  is  to  do  what  many  people — people 
who  do  not  look  at  things  through  the  eyes  of  Jesus 
Christ — think  to  be  impossible  that  I  have  been  plead- 
ing with  you  this  morning.  It  is  the  chief  business 
of  the  ministers  of  Him  who  went  to  the  Cross  for  His 
devotion  to  the  ideal  things,  and  who  cared  for  no 
victory  less  than  the  infinite  victory,  to  persuade  men  to 
have  faith  in  God.  It  is  indeed  a  tremendous  demand 
when  fully  understood  and  realised.  The  reason  why 
so  few  are  really  and  completely  committed  to  doing 
the  will  of  God  is  just  because  the  strain  is  so  hard. 
They  have  not  faith  enough  in  God  to  direct  their  lives 


3o8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

wholly  by  His  will  and  to  trust  themselves  wholly  in 
His  hands.  All  through  their  days  they  are  busy  at 
compromise.  Their  devotion,  which  should  be  wholly 
God's,  is  divided  between  Him  and  material  and  selfish 
interests.  They  are  not  single-hearted  and  single-eyed  ; 
and  that  is  why  we  often  hear  them  speaking  and  see 
them  acting  as  if  they  were  not  the  same  men  ;  that  is 
why,  though  they  may  be  successful  and  popular  men  in 
the  state  and  the  church,  in  society  and  the  local  com- 
munity, they  do  not  exercise  any  lofty  influence.  Their 
lives  are  more  or  less  forceless  in  any  high  and  abiding 
way,  because  they  are  so  faithless.  Oh  !  what  mountains 
of  evil  would  go  down  if  we  had  only  men  and  women 
possessed  with  the  power  of  simple  truth  and  goodness  ; 
in  whom  the  Divine  laws  of  life  were  so  inwrought  in 
character  that  they  could  not  truckle,  could  not  dis- 
simulate, could  not  play  the  part  of  time-server  and 
coward,  could  not  do  evil  that  good  may  come,  could 
not  bear  to  be  successful  at  the  expense  of  their  fellows, 
could  not  live  idle  and  easy  lives  in  a  world  so  full  of 
woe  and  want  ;  with  no  anxiety  save  to  be  obedient  to 
the  heavenly  vision  ;  trusting  the  moral  laws  of  life  as 
they  trust  physical  laws  ;  full  of  the  courage  of  faith 
— courage  to  meet  failure  and  defeat  rather  than  swerve 
from  the  Divine  ideal,  courage  to  meet  and  to  use 
success  if  it  comes  without  yielding  one  hair's-breadth 
of  conviction  and  principle  ! 

Where   are   the  men   of   faith  ?     Will  Jesus  Christ 


FAITH  IN  GOD  309 

cry  in  vain  to  you — *  Have  faith  in  God  '  ?  Will  you 
not  so  believe  in  Him  as  to  share  His  life  of  faith, 
as  to  commit  yourselves  whole-heartedly  to  His  order 
of  living,  as  to  leave  Him  not  alone  in  His  following 
of  the  highest,  as  to  be  His  companions  in  obedience 
and  service  and  sacrifice,  and  thus  to  prove  yourselves, 
in  the  best  of  all  ways,  to  be  in  the  true  succession  of 
Christ,  members  of  His  Holy  Catholic  Church,  which 
we  rightly  describe  as  "  the  blessed  company  of  all  faith- 
ful people  "  ? 

"  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war  : 
Who  follows  in  His  train  ?  " 


r/t«/u-<6^    wvi    ijiX^AjeML^  .    ^  ^J3  7 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  ^ 

"The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting 
arms." — Deut.  xxxiii.  27. 

The  text  is  one  of  the  finest  and  loftiest  utterances  of 
Hebrew  religion.  It  is  mere  presumption  for  us  to 
imagine  that  any  expression  which  we  can  now  give  to 
our  confidence  in  the  Divine  order  and  care  will  ever 
go  beyond  the  trustful  and  triumphant  words,  "  The 
Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms."  Most  fitting  and  inspiring  was 
this  great  assurance  under  the  circumstances  in  which 
it  was  first  given.  The  children  of  Israel  had  need  to 
be  reminded  of  the  Eternal  Refuge  and  Support  when 
they  were  about  to  lose  the  presence  and  guidance  of 
the  man  who  had  been  their  leader  and  companion 
in  their  toilsome  and  troubled  march  through  the 
wilderness  for  forty  years.  Moses  was  leaving 
them,  but  leaving  them  with  God.  They  were 
homeless,  and  their  national  future  was  uncertain 
and  hidden  ;  but  to-morrow,  as  to-day,  from  genera- 
tion  to   generation,  they   would   be  in   the   presence 

310 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  311 

and  care  of  the  Eternal,  in  the  arms  of  the  Everlasting 
Power  and  Peace. 

Originally  given  by  Moses  as  a  promise  to  his  people, 
and  to  inspire  hope  as  to  their  national  continuity  and 
destiny,  yet  we  are  not  wrong  in  supposing  that  in  the 
strength  of  its  assurance  he  himself  met  the  last  solemn 
and  supreme  moment  of  his  life,  and  in  dying  conquered 
death.  When  he  uttered  the  words  of  the  text  the 
premonition  was  strangely  clear  that  the  hour  of  his 
departure  had  come.  To  be  alone  in  that  hour — alone 
with  nature,  alone  with  God — was  his  strong  wish. 
And  as  he  leaves  the  society  of  his  fellows,  the  noise  of 
the  camp  for  the  silence  of  the  mountain-top  from 
which  he  is  to  come  down  again  no  more,  we  hear  him 
saying,  not  only  to  his  people,  but  to  his  own  soul  : 
"  The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are 
the  everlasting  arms." 

It  is  simply  incredible  that  this  sublime  utterance, 
breaking  at  first  from  the  strong  and  calm  soul  of  the 
dying  Moses,  and  in  later  days  seized  upon  with  such 
spiritual  avidity  and  wrought  into  Hebrew  psalm  and 
Christian  hymn  and  prayer,  is  rightly  regarded  when 
thought  of  merely  as  the  expression  of  the  faith  of  a 
few  souls  of  exceptional  religious  sensitiveness  and 
devoutness,  scattered  here  and  there.  It  goes  down,  I 
am  persuaded,  into  the  deep  places  of  innumerable 
hearts,  and  utters  their  undying  wish  and  hope,  if  not 
their  sure  faith — the  faith  they  have  verified  in  their 


312  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

own  experience.  The  ancient  words  interpret  and  give 
immortal  expression  to  a  universal  and  indestructible 
need  of  humanity.  They  were  true  before  they 
were  written,  and  they  would  be  true  if  they  had 
not  been  written  in  the  sacred  book  of  rehgion. 
Centuries  have  passed  away,  and  generations  have 
come  and  gone,  but  they  still  lay  upon  us  their 
solemn  spell,  and  we  continue  to  use  them,  as  we  do 
all  the  great  words  of  the  Bible,  because  they  find  us, 
divine  our  hearts  for  us,  and  utter  what  in  us  is 
but  faintly  felt  and  dimly  thought  with  the  clear  and 
certain  sound  of  complete  conviction,  and  with  the 
energy  of  a  faith  that  quickens  and  strengthens  our 
wavering  trusts  and  hopes. 

No  !  the  text  is  not  the  utterance  of  an  exceptional 
soul,  but  a  genuine  cry  of  the  human  spirit ;  not  merely 
a  line  of  sublime  poetry,  which  came  out  of  that  old 
Hebrew's  heart,  but  a  voice  from  distant  ages,  which 
still  expresses  to  the  world  the  most  fundamental  of 
human  needs,  and  becomes  the  personal  and  cherished 
confession  of  the  confidence  of  every  religious  man, 
and  of  every  man  in  his  deeper  and  more  religious 
hours.  We  have  needs  in  our  life  which  had  no  place 
in  the  life  of  ancient  Israel — needs  which  are  related  to 
a  higher  social  and  intellectual  development  ;  but  the 
deepest  needs  of  the  human  soul  are  common  and 
universal,  and  know  neither  to-day  nor  yesterday. 
Easier  conditions  of  existence,  new  knowledge  and  new 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  313 

inventions,  have  not  done  away  with  sorrow  and  sin. 
The  progress  of  civilisation  has  not  diminished  but  in- 
creased our  spiritual  perils.  We  have  not  outgrown 
the  need  of  the  Divine  protection  and  defence.  Sooner  or 
later  every  son  of  man  is  taught  the  lesson  of  his  own 
insufficiency,  of  his  need  of  a  strength  he  does  not  find 
in  himself,  and  of  a  shelter  and  support  which  his  fellows 
cannot  give,  and  no  earthly  interest  or  object  can  yield. 
The  larger  and  more  varied  his  experience  of  the  world 
and  life,  and  the  more  deeply  he  feels  and  thinks,  the 
more  does  he  realise  the  assurance  of  the  Divine  pro- 
tection and  care  to  be  the  most  pressing  and  imperious 
of  all  his  practical  needs.  Of  all  substitutes  for  God — 
wealth,  comfort,  amusement,  music,  beauty,  learning, 
friendship,  love,  philanthropy — he  must  say,  at  least  in 
his  most  searching  and  critical  experiences,  "  Miser- 
able comforters  are  ye  all."  To  state  the  fundamental 
facts  of  human  life  is,  indeed,  to  affirm  religion.  In  the 
generalised  experience  of  mankind  lies  the  real  basis  of 
religion.  And  all  religion  must  somehow  have  its 
beginning  and  its  end  in  God.  Religion  is  God  ;  God 
is  religion. 

Yes  !  we  need  nothing  so  much  now  as  to  be 
possessed  and  mastered  by  the  assurance  of  faith  to 
which  Moses  gave  expression  in  the  text.  There  has 
been  since  his  day  a  steady  growth  and  development,  a 
widening  and  deepening  of  the  idea  of  God  ;  but  it  is 
still  his  sense  and  experience  of  God  that  we  need  for 


314  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

the  salvation  and  inspiration  of  life.  And  the  true 
religious  interpretation  of  the  past  is,  that  what  God 
once  was  to  men  He  is  now  and  always.  Not  only  to 
one  race  or  generation  of  His  children,  but  to  all  races 
and  generations,  is  He  near,  and  equally  near.  True 
religion  is  not  the  memory  of  what  God  once  was  in 
the  far  past,  nor  the  hope  of  what  He  may  be  in  the  far 
future,  but  the  consciousness  and  experience  of  His 
presence  and  power  in  this  present  moment.  This 
personal  and  immediate  contact  and  communion  of  the 
soul  with  the  Eternal  "Wisdom,  Goodness,  and  Father- 
hood is  the  ultimate  and  primary  power  of  religion. 
The  truly  religious  man  is  just  the  man  to  whom  God 
is  no  mere  name,  tradition,  or  opinion,  but  his  one  sure 
refuge  and  support — the  man  who  has  proved  in  his 
own  experience  that  God  is  here  and  now  to  the  children 
what  He  was  long  ago  to  the  fathers — no  less  mighty 
to  protect,  uphold,  and  save,  and  no  less  abounding  in 
lovingkindness  and  tender  mercy. 

"  I  feel  that  if  I  can  believe  in  God  I  believe  in  all 
that  I  need,"  wrote  an  eminent  Presbyterian  divine  in 
the  record  of  his  private  reflections.  To  believe  truly 
and  fully  in  God  may  be  all  that  we  really  need  to 
inspire  and  sustain  our  hearts,  but  this  most  necessary 
thing  is  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world.  It  is 
the  hardest  and  rarest  attainment  of  life.  O  blessed 
soul !  that  has  reached  and  realised  through  its  own 
experience    this    ancient    and    sublime    trust :    "  The 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  315 

Eternal   God   is    thy  refuge,  and   underneath   are   the 
everlasting  arms." 

To  bring  men  to  find  refuge  and  rest  in  Eternal  God 
is  the  purpose  and  end  of  all  Divine  revelation,  discip- 
line, and  teaching  ;  of  all  Christian  ministries,  and  of 
all  the  ministries,  gracious  and  severe,  of  human  life. 
We  are  set  within  a  system  of  mediation.  It  is  the 
office  of  the  natural  to  lead  us  to  the  spiritual,  and  of 
the  temporal  to  lead  us  to  the  eternal.  The  law  of 
mediation  is  the  most  universal  of  laws,  and  it  is  every- 
where the  condition  of  Divine  revelation  and  activity. 
The  whole  material  universe  is  a  system  of  mediation 
by  which  God  would  draw  us  to  Himself.  The 
creation  is  but  the  Divine  thought  clothing  itself  in 
visible  form,  and  it  comes  forth  into  form,  not  only 
because  self-manifestation  is  a  necessity  of  Deity,  but 
in  order  that  the  children  of  God  may  be  led  by  it 
nearer  to  Him  who  is  the  source  of  their  being  and 
the  unseen  Power  of  all  good.  The  order  of  human 
life  is  a  still  higher  revelation  of  God,  expressing  depths 
of  divinity  beyond  what  the  physical  creation  can  set 
forth,  and  by  it  we  may  approach  more  closely  and 
realise  more  fully  the  glory  of  God.  "  A  man,"  said 
the  bold  apostle,  "  is  the  image  and  glory  of  God." 
The  essential  human  powers  and  qualities — reason, 
justice,  love,  sympathy — are  representative  of  what  He 
is,  and  the  growing  goodness  of  man  is  a  growing  revela- 
tion of  God.     Through  human  righteousness  and  love, 


3i6  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAM  AVI 

through  the  care,  wisdom,  justice,  patience,  tenderness, 
sacrifice,  and  fidelity  of  parents,  brothers,  sisters, 
husbands,  wives,  and  friends,  we  are  led  nearer  Him 
in  whom  the  spiritual  quality  of  our  human  being,  and 
all  the  beauty  and  glory  of  our  human  relationships, 
dwell  for  ever  and  ever  in  infinite  fulness. 

In  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  St.  Paul  twice  applies 
the  term  "  mediator  "  to  Moses,  and  all  higher  minds 
do,  in  fact,  mediate  between  their  less  developed  and 
endowed  fellows  and  the  spiritual  realities  of  the  world 
and  life.  Through  men  God  draws  men  into  the 
communion  of  His  Spirit.  There  is  nothing  arbitrary, 
official,  or  priestly  in  this,  but  only  natural,  personal, 
moral  influence — the  influence  not  of  an  office,  but 
of  commanding  personality,  of  superior  power  and 
character.  In  our  own  experience  have  we  no  key  to 
the  understanding  of  this  law  of  mediation  .''  As  we 
have  walked  in  spirit  with  the  great  souls  of  the  past, 
and  read  their  words,  and  measured  our  lives  by  theirs, 
have  we  felt  no  quickening  movement  of  inward  power, 
and  no  drawings  to  God  with  the  bands  of  a  man  .? 
Do  we  not  know  through  the  spiritual  help  we  have 
received  from  wise  teachers  and  friends,  through  the 
inspirations  of  high  minds,  and  the  transfiguration  of 
life  to  our  feeling  and  thought  which  came  from  their 
new  and  finer  interpretation  of  things,  what  Emerson 
meant  when  he  wrote  : 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  317 

"  O  friend,  my  bosom  said, 
Through  thee  alone  the  sky  is  arched, 
Through  thee  the  rose  is  red  ; 
All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form, 
And  look  beyond  the  earth  : 


Me,  too,  thy  nobleness  has  taught 
To  master  my  despair  ; 
The  fountains  of  my  hidden  life 
Are  through  thy  friendship  fair  "  ? 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  Him  who  is  the  supreme 
and  perfect  instance  of  this  universal  law  of  mediation 
between  man  and  God  ?  The  Divine  revelation  in 
nature  and  man  culminates  in  Him  who  is  the  image 
of  the  invisible  God  and  the  brightness  of  the  Father's 
glory.  His  mediation  is  not  hindrance  but  help  to 
direct,  uninterrupted  communion.  He  came  forth 
from  God,  not  to  save  or  detain  us  from  God,  but  to 
lead  us  to  God  ;  and  He  lived  and  died,  said  the  sacred 
writer,  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be  in  God.  The 
mediatorship  of  Jesus  Christ,  this  is  what  it  means  to 
the  Christian  mind — a  living  Friend,  human,  so  that 
the  human  heart  understands  Him  ;  Divine,  so  that 
through  Him  we  know  what  God  is  like.  His  character 
is  the  character  of  Deity  ;  His  love,  the  assurance  of 
the  Divine  love  ;  His  sufferings  and  death,  the  reve- 
lation in  time  and  space  of  the  eternal  passion  and 
sacrifice  of  God. 


31 8  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

And  as  Christ  was,  so  are  His  followers  to  be  in  the 
world.  Christian  Church  and  Christian  ministry  exist 
to  bring  men  to  God.  Church  and  Bible,  sacrament 
and  creed,  faith  and  experience,  are  not  the  refuge. 
They  only  fulfil  their  work  when  they  lead  us  to  God, 
and  leave  us  to  find  our  "  all  in  all  "  in  Him.  When 
will  men  understand  that  they  do  not  require  to  be 
protected  from  God,  and  that  God  Himself  is  their 
protection  ?  Superstition,  under  Christianity,  as  well 
as  in  pagan  times,  has  one  common  characteristic  dis- 
covered through  all  its  forms — to  keep  God  away  from 
man,  to  strengthen  that  dread  and  horror  of  God  which 
dwells  in  every  spiritually  undeveloped  and  unen- 
lightened soul.  Churches  and  priesthoods  have  been 
organised,  Bible  and  sacrament,  and  even  the  person 
and  work  of  Christ  have  been  used,  to  come  between 
men  and  God,  as  if  it  were  from  God  and  not  from 
ungodliness  men  required  to  be  delivered.  "  O  righteous 
Father,  the  world  hath  not  known  Thee."  "  He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  There  is  no 
refuge  from  God  but  in  God.  The  God  whom  Jesus 
Christ  revealed  is  Himself  our  Refuge  and  our  Salvation. 

"The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms."  I  wish  I  could  say  some- 
thing to  help  you  to  feel  the  spell  of  this  utterance,  to 
catch  its  high  and  sweet  serenity,  and  to  make  its  great 
confidence  your  own  ! 

The  Eternal  God  is  our  Refuge  from  the  unsearch- 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  319 

able  mystery  of  life.  We  cannot  escape  from  mystery. 
It  grows  with  our  growing  knowledge.  What  a  world 
this  is  in  which  we  live,  and  how  awful  in  some  of  its 
aspects  our  life  in  it !  Does  it  not  require  something 
more  than  our  little  systems  and  schemes  to  keep  the 
mind  and  soul  in  strength  and  peace  in  the  midst  of 
this  troubled  world  and  troubled  life  .''  Where  else  can 
we  find  the  sense  of  shelter  and  security  but  where 
Moses  found  it  long  ago  ?  "  The  Eternal  God  is  thy 
refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms." 
Let  us  yield  nothing  to  our  fears.  That  the  Unknown 
and  the  Unknowable  may  be  trusted  is  the  message  of 
religion.  Our  discipleship  to  Jesus  Christ  inspires  this 
lofty  confidence  in  the  beneficence  of  the  universe,  in  a 
universe  essentially  good  and  making  for  goodness — 
a  confidence  which  is  the  anticipation  of  much  that 
modern  knowledge  is  now  slowly  declaring.  In  the 
companionship  and  fellowship  of  the  Son  of  God  we 
know  that  where  His  trust  was  in  Gethsemane  and  on 
Calvary  ours  can  ever  rest.  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands 
I  commend  My  spirit." 

In  times  of  critical  strain  and  trial  to  civilisation  and 
the  State,  amid  great  political  and  social  troubles  and 
changes,  let  us  not  fail  to  remember  and  realise  that  the 
Eternal  God  is  our  Refuge,  and  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms.  It  is  not  our  decrees  and  institu- 
tions that  are  upholding  the  world,  but  the  everlasting 
laws — another  name    for   the    everlasting  arms.     Our 


320  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

Refuge  in  times  of  distress  is  not  parliaments  and 
governments  and  compromising  politicians,  but  the 
Eternal  God.  Our  rulers  and  governors  may  help  or 
hinder  progress,  but  they  do  not  decide  the  supreme 
and  final  issue  of  things.  There  is  another  Providence 
in  affairs  than  the  human  providence.  This  world  is, 
after  all,  God's  world.  Let  us  not  therefore  lose 
courage  and  hope  because  in  the  complications  of  dis- 
integration and  change  we  do  not  see  what  is  to  follow. 
In  all  ages  men,  bewildered  by  the  vision  of  great 
changes,  have  pronounced  the  doom  of  the  world 
because  they  were  not  able  to  see  or  understand  the 
process  of  its  salvation.  Let  us  not  be  fearful  even  if 
the  worst  happens.  The  worst  that  can  happen  is  often 
the  best  for  the  world.  Jerusalem  destroyed  is  better 
than  Jerusalem  saved,  and  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 
better  for  the  moral  health  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth 
than  its  continuance.  A  tremendous  evil  is  often  the 
shadow  and  herald  of  a  vaster  good.  From  evil  good 
ever  evolving  is,  perhaps,  the  best  description  we  can 
give  of  the  Divine  method.  In  God  we  must  ever 
trust  when  there  is  darkness  without  and  within.  To 
fear  inevitable  change  is  to  fear  God.  To  despair  of 
human  society  is  to  despair  of  God.  In  the  order  of 
things  principles  do  not  yield  to  temporary  disturbances 
and  laws  to  confusion.  Gravitation  binds  the  earth 
notwithstanding  all  the  agitation  and  noise  on  the 
surface.     Light    prevails  over  darkness,  though  cloud 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  321 

and  storm  cross  its  course.  The  moral  order  of  the 
world  is,  if  possible,  more  sure  and  stable  than  the 
physical.  Truth  and  Right  are  the  ultimate  realities. 
Human  life  in  its  evolution  has  its  end,  as  it  had  its 
beginning,  in  God.  There  can  be  no  evil,  therefore, 
in  any  of  the  permanent  forces  which  are  shaping 
human  society.  Indeed,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
unchanging  and  persistent  evil,  for  God  is  not  only 
without,  but  within  the  world,  ever  immanent  and 
active  in  the  life  of  His  creation  and  His  children,  and 
present  in  evil,  not  as  evil,  but  as  righteousness  and 
goodness  and  redemption  to  overcome  it. 

In  time  of  critical  stress  and  trial  to  the  Church  let 
us  cultivate  and  cherish  the  faith  that  the  Eternal  God 
is  our  Refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting 
arms.  Only  weak  and  undisciplined  minds  and  souls, 
without  any  real  and  deep  life  in  God,  can  be  hysterical 
about  the  fate  of  religion  and  the  Church  because  of 
this  or  that  change.  Nothing  shows  more  conclusively 
and  sorrowfully  the  feeble  quality  of  much  which  calls 
itself  "  faith  "  than  the  periodical  panics  of  the  religious 
world.  The  churches  seem  to  be  quite  unable  to  free 
themselves  from  the  mediaeval  fear  of  the  intellectual 
life.  O  ye  of  little  faith  !  wherefore  do  ye  doubt  .'' 
Not  until  God  ceases  to  be  God,  and  man  ceases  to  be 
man,  will  wonder  and  worship,  prayer  and  piety,  love 
and  sacrifice,  fail  and  pass  from  the  earth.  There  is 
nothing  passing  away  but  the    imperfect.     God    does 


21 


322  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

not  put  out  a  lesser  light  save  upon  the  rising  of  a 
greater.  From  light  to  more  light  is  the  Divine  way. 
The  form  in  which  the  theistic  belief  is  held  may  have 
changed,  but  the  Eternal  Reality  abides.  Our  con- 
ception of  the  method  of  creation  is  different  from  that 
held  by  our  fathers,  but  God  is  as  necessary  to  the  new 
universe  as  ever  He  was  to  the  old.  Our  Christian 
trusts  and  hopes,  instead  of  fading  and  dwindling,  grow 
clearer  and  larger.  Many  even  of  our  doubts  and 
denials  are  but  the  negative  side  of  a  more  positive 
faith,  and  are  preparing  the  way  for  grander  affirmations. 
The  modification  of  opinion  is  the  sign,  not  of  decay, 
but  of  growth.  Our  ecclesiastical  separations  and 
recombinations  are  full  of  promise  of  renewed  strength 
and  of  wider  and  stabler  unions.  We  are  being  un- 
settled in  order  to  be  better  settled — settled  on  surer 
foundations.  Let  us  shake  off  our  timidities.  Apart 
from  all  that  is  hopeful  in  modern  movement,  we 
always  require  to  remember  that  our  refuge  and  ground 
of  confidence  are  not  "  theories,"  "  views,"  "  convic- 
tions," the  resolutions  of  majorities,  but  God  Himself ; 
and  that  it  is  not  our  faith,  nor  the  faith  of  past  genera- 
tions, that  is  upholding  the  world,  but  the  everlasting, 
arms.  The  Throne  of  the  Eternal  will  not  be  in 
danger  even  if  our  churches  are  disestablished,  our 
institutions  changed,  our  creeds  and  customs  modified 
or  abolished,  and  all  our  material  securities  be  disturbed 
or    taken   from    us.     We   do    not  support  God  ;  He 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  323 

supports  us.  He  is  too  infinitely  true  and  just  and 
impartial  to  be  wholly  and  solely  on  this  or  that  side 
in  any  of  our  mortal  controversies  and  conflicts  ;  but 
He  is  wherever  truth  and  justice  and  good  are,  and 
He  is  behind  all  that  is  true  and  all  that  is  just  and  all 
that  is  good,  both  in  the  life  of  individual  men  and 
communities  of  men,  bearing  them  on  through  apparent 
weakness  and  failure  to  final  victory.  We  may  trust 
God  to  vindicate  and  establish  His  own  cause  in  the 
world. 

In  times  of  critical  strain  and  trial  to  ourselves,  amid 
changes  in  our  days  which  make  us  feel  as  if  there  were 
nothing  steadfast,  in  the  hour  of  disappointment  and 
unforeseen  calamity  and  loss,  in  the  darkness  of  tempta- 
tion and  sin,  sickness  and  death,  let  this  be  our  confi- 
dence :  "  The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms  " — "  thy  Refuge  "  from  the 
world  without  and  the  tumults  of  thine  own  spirit  ; 
"  thy  Refuge  "  from  all  the  dark  shadows  which  haunt 
thee,  from  sleepless,  tormenting  memories  of  evil  done, 
and  from  all  invisible  terrors  ;  "  thy  Refuge "  when 
there  is  nothing  to  rest  upon  in  what  thou  seest  around 
thee,  or  can  find  within  thee  ;  "  thy  Refuge  "  when  thy 
thoughts  baffle  thee  and  thy  faith  fails  thee  ;  "  thy 
Refuge  "  from  all  mortal  changes  and  ills,  from  the  loneli- 
ness of  life,  and  in  the  hour  of  thy  final  passion  and 
conflict.     Not  from  God,  I   say,  do  we  require  to  be 

protected  here  or  hereafter.     He  Himself  is  our  pro- 

21* 


324  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

tection,  our  all-sufficient  protection.  Other  refuge  is 
not  needed.  "  Our  sufficiency  is  of  God."  "  My  God 
shall  supply  all  your  need."  His  mercy  is  unfailing, 
and  His  Fatherhood  eternal.  In  the  crowd  of  beings 
and  worlds  we  are  not  overlooked  or  forgotten.  In  our 
littleness  and  lowliness,  in  our  sorrow  and  sin,  we  are 
the  objects  of  an  infinite  care.  We  cannot  fall  out  of 
His  hands,  and  in  His  hands  we  can  receive  only  good, 
even  though  that  good  may  come  by  means  of  the 
severest  discipline.  No  soul  is  ever  left  by  Him  to 
suffer  unavailingly,  or  to  perish  alone,  even  though  it 
be  unconscious  of  His  care.  The  Lord  is  nigh  to  all 
who  call  upon  Him,  and  underneath  the  saddest  life 
there  are  the  everlasting  arms.  The  surest  and  final 
refuge  of  all  sufferers  and  sinners  is  in  God. 

And  this  sense  of  refuge  and  support  is  not  condi- 
tioned by  time  and  space.  The  days  and  months  and 
years  of  this  tempted  and  troubled  life  do  not  circum- 
scribe the  Eternal.  Frail  are  we  and  vanishing  when 
surveyed  from  the  standpoint  of  this  earthly  existence  ; 
and  yet,  because  God  is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting, 
and  we  are  related  to  Him  as  children  to  Father,  we  are 
not  at  the  mercy  of  accidents,  and  death  can  have  no 
dominion  over  us.  When  we  fall  it  is  into  the 
everlasting  arms.  We  do  not  move  away  from  the 
merciful  and  redeeming  care  of  God  by  moving  from 
country  to  country,  or  from  world  to  world.  In  this 
world  and  in  the  strange  new  world  that  lies  beyond 


THE  ETERNAL  GOD  THY  REFUGE  325 

death,  in  the  seen  and  in  the  unseen,  for  the  days  of  our 
mortal  years  and  for  the  unending  ages,  the  Eternal 
God  is  our  Refuge. 

Let  us,  then,  take  this  great  confidence  with  us  as 
we  enter  on  the  unknown  ways  of  life.  Let  us  rise  out 
of  our  weakness  and  fear,  out  of  our  poor,  trembling 
and  hesitating  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  seek  to  live 
and  move  in  the  clear  light  of  the  assurance  that  com- 
forted the  dying  Moses,  and  which  is  ours  more  than 
ever  as  it  has  been  illuminated  and  confirmed  by  Jesus 
Christ,  and  by  long  ages  of  spiritual  experience.  What- 
ever else  we  doubt,  let  us  not  doubt  that  in  life  and 
in  death,  in  the  body  and  out  of  the  body,  in  this  world 
and  in  all  the  worlds,  the  Eternal  God  is  our  Refuge, 
and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.  And  unto 
Him  who  has  been  the  dwelling-place  of  man  in  all 
generations,  whose  never-changing  will  binds  together 
the  near  and  distant,  the  known  and  the  unknown,  the 
seen  and  the  unseen,  and  whose  goodness  and  mercy 
endure  for  ever  and  ever,  unto  Him  our  God  and  our 
Father  be  the  worship,  the  trust  and  love,  the  obedience 
and  service  of  His  children,  world  without  end.     Amen. 

Prayer 

O  Thou  from  Whom  we  come,  to  Whom  we  go,  in 
Whom  we  live,  the  Beginning  and  the  End  of  these 
swiftly  passing  days,  and  our  Everlasting  Home  !  give 


326  DE  PROFUNDIS  CLAMAVI 

us  to  discern  the  purpose  for  which  Thou  hast  sent  us 
here,  and  help  us  to  fulfil  it.  Keep  us  from  following 
what  is  foolish,  and  false,  and  unprofitable.  In 
darkened  ways  be  Thou  our  light  ;  in  perplexing  paths 
be  Thou  our  guide.  Take  out  of  our  hearts  all 
suspicion  and  fear  of  Thee  and  of  Thy  dealings  with 
us,  and  let  our  doubts  grow  into  larger  and  richer 
trusts.  Amid  all  the  movement  and  tumult  of  life, 
amid  all  the  comings  and  goings  of  the  world,  may  our 
souls  be  at  rest  in  Thee.  In  Thy  Hand  are  our  times, 
and  in  Thy  Hand,  merciful  Father,  would  we  leave 
them  in  quietness  and  in  confidence  ;  calm  and  strong 
in  the  faith  that  Thou  meanest  well  with  us  and  with 
all  Thy  children,  that  goodness  and  mercy  will  follow 
us  all  the  days  of  our  life,  that  in  this  world  and  in  the 
world  and  life  to  come  the  Eternal  God  is  our  Refuge, 
and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.     Amen. 


PRINTED    BY   NEILL   AND   CO.,    LTD.,    EDINBURGH 


